Skipper Luke Chambers has hit out at some agents who he believes haven’t got the best interests of their players - particularly youngsters - at heart.
"A good agent is someone who has the best interests of a player at heart. Sadly there are not many out there who think like that,” Chambers wrote in the programme for Saturday’s game against Stoke City.
"You used to have to be licensed to be an agent. Now anyone can do the job and there are loads out there doing it. Far too many.
"That can’t be right but with the money in the game, that draws people to it. People are on the look out to make money out of football whatever way they can.”
Chambers questions the role agents, or intermediaries as they’re now officially known, play in young players’ careers and says he tries to advise Town’s academy youngsters, a number of whom live or have lived in an annex to his house.
"Agents have a role to play at certain levels and there are some good ones out there but if I knew as a young player what I know now, I would have probably changed a lot of decisions I made,” the 33-year-old added.
"I’m trying to help the young players here in that respect. You get kids here, 16, 17 who get a contract. Well, it’s not down to an agent that they have got a contract is it? So why are they getting paid? How can you take money off a kid who is earning a couple of hundred quid a week?
"There are agents that will try and get a player moved because they will be on a cut of any transfer fee. There are agents that will have connections at certain clubs and make deals happen there. It’s all wrong but it’s another side of the game. Agents are a drain on the game in my opinion.
"I think it’s better to have former players working as agents. They have had a career in the game and know the ins and outs of it and I think that counts for a lot.”