Athlete-agent agency experiences of rugby and soccer players in South Africa

Abstract

Athlete-agent relationships require that agents have the necessary competencies to deliver on tasks assigned and agreed upon with players. These include representing players on different levels of sport participation (club, provincial, and national), negotiating and securing employment contracts, obtaining player sponsorship and endorsement deals, promoting players’ brands, managing players’ diaries, and preparing them for life after a professional sports career. The question arises as to how professional rugby and soccer players in South Africa experience their relationships with agents. This study adopted a descriptive diagnostic design with a quantitative approach utilising a self-structured questionnaire to examine the perceptions of purposively selected rugby (n=50) and soccer (n=50) players in South Africa on their perceptions and experiences of the player-agent agency. Face, construct and content validities of the questionnaire were evaluated with a test retest process. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was used to establish the questionnaire’s reliability (r=0.87). The results showed that the majority of the players (70%) had good experiences of their agents; however, a significant percentage of players (40%) had experienced situations where their agents were deemed unfair, incompetent, unethical and untrustworthy.