Revealed: Nearly half of football agents taking FIFA exam failed

Current FIFA president Gianni Infantino

FOOTBALL Revealed: Nearly half of football agents taking FIFA exam failed

Joel Omotto • 20:20 - 27.04.2023

The agents complained over tough tests but will have to re-sit or risk being banned from conducting transfers.

Almost half of would-be football agents failed the new FIFA exam.

Football’s world governing body has revealed that only 52 percent, 1,962, of the 3,800 candidates passed the first test which was taken by candidates from 138 different member associations across different time zones.

The applicants were due to get their results on Thursday with the new worldwide FIFA licence the central part of FIFA’s Football Agent Regulations.

Those who failed the exam can sit it again at the next test which is due to be held on September 20 with the new licence becoming compulsory from October 1 following this transitional period.

There are currently around over 15,000 licensed agents in the world and many long-standing representatives did not have to take the new exam as they already qualify under FIFA’s “legacy” agreement.

The new set-up is designed to crackdown on unscrupulous agents but also cut down on the growing trend of family members representing their kin.

FIFA are confident that the new qualification and rules will make it much harder for family members to use an agent as a “front” to sign off on deals while they effectively run the show having often been paid huge sums for the privilege.

There were an initial 6,586 applications for the exam but only 3,800 actually paid the Ksh50,000 to sit the exam which took an hour and featured 20 multiple-choice questions.

According to the UK’s Mirror, some agents believed there was a “cheat code” because candidates were allowed to take in electronic reading material and they could simply press “control F” on a keyboard to search for the answers.

But FIFA, who gave candidates a 528-page document to study before the exam, have insisted that it is not that easy as they still have to apply the relevant information to each answer.

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