Leeds United and Sheffield United break their transfer records but are still amongst Premier League's lowest spenders on agents

Huddersfield Town, Hull City, Bradford City and Harrogate Town were Yorkshire's only league clubs to pay above-average amounts to agents in the Football Association's latest figures.
RECORD: The undisclosed agent's fee paid as part of Leeds United's £27m signing of Rodrigo is included in the latest figuresRECORD: The undisclosed agent's fee paid as part of Leeds United's £27m signing of Rodrigo is included in the latest figures
RECORD: The undisclosed agent's fee paid as part of Leeds United's £27m signing of Rodrigo is included in the latest figures

The numbers cover the last two transfer windows, running as they do from February 1 2020 to the same point in 2021. Leeds United, Rotherham United and Harrogate were promoted in that period, whilst Hull dropped into League One.

Although Leeds and Sheffield United both broke their transfer records in that time, the relative amounts they spent on agents shows the gulf between the Championship, which they left in 2020 and 2019 respectively, and the Premier League.

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Leeds paid £7,034,943 including to the agents of summer signings Robin Koch, Raphinha, Deigo Llorente, Helder Costa (whose loan became permanent) and £27m record signing Rodrigo, and the Blades £7,081,018, including for the £24m signing of Rhian Brewster. Both amounts, which also include fees for new contracts, are just over half the Premier League average of £13,611,011. The Championship 2020-21 average was just £1,698,063.

The two clubs spent closer to £4m the previous year, when Leeds were in the Championship but the Blades were not. Neither made any January 2021 signings.

Only Burnley, Crystal Palace, Southampton and West Bromwich Albion paid less than Leeds.

A summer which saw them go on a huge spending spree resulted in Chelsea spending more than £35m on agents fees alone. League One Gillingham were the only league club not to have paid any agent's fees.

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Huddersfield Town have had to be relatively frugal in the transfer market since relegation from the Premier League in 2019 and saw their parachute payment cut last year because of the global Covid-19 pandemic. Even though their £1,752,064 was more than £0.5m down on the previous year it was still one of the higher figures in the Championship, where the total spent was £40,753,529.

Breakdowns of the payments for individual deals are not included, but Town's figures include pay-offs for Florent Hadejonaj and Steve Mounie, who left the club in the summer transfer window.

Barnsley, by contrast, have been held up as a model Championship club this season and have put themselves into the play-offs spending less on agent's fees than all but Luton Town, Millwall and newly-promoted Rotherham United (£184,469) and Wycombe Wanderers. The Reds paid £515,162 to intermediaries.

Sheffield Wednesday cut their outlay almost in half to £722,988, whereas Middlesbrough remained steady at £1,394,501.

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Hull were comfortably the biggest spenders in League One as they looked to bounce back from relegation. Their £543,238 was more than four times the divisional average, and over £100,000 above the next highest spenders, Sunderland. Doncaster Rovers' £110,299 was slightly below average for the division, where £3.1m was spent in total.

Bradford invested heavily in January to support their new management team of Mark Trueman and Conor Sellars, bringing nine new players to the club. However, their £71,369 in agents fees for the year was down £40,000, slightly behind Forest Green Rovers and Leyton Orient, and way behind Salford City's £137,884. Pay-offs for Jackson Longridge, Tyler French, Dylan Mottley-Henry and Ben Richards-Everton are included in the Bantams' figures.

Harrogate were also active in January, signing seven players and in total they spent £50,118 on agents over the 12 months, slightly ahead of the League Two average of £44,546.

Only 26 of the 66 National League clubs are listed but York City's costs were above average at £13,099 despite playing in Conference North, where Guiseley parted with just £450. Halifax Town were around £2,000 below average with £8,483.

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