The basketball player – agent agreement is an agreement concluded between the player and the agent. The agreement must be in writing and registered within FIBA.
The role of the agent is extremely important in the basketball business. The agent serves as a “professional parent” to the player by helping him/her to lead the career, negotiate the deals with clubs and sponsorship endorsements, provide qualified consultations, and so on; the agent acts as a mediator between the player and the club and usually, is the first point of reference when problems arise.
Dealing with the agent is beneficial for both players and clubs, as it makes business communication rapid, professional, and less emotional. Usually players and agents build a long lasting friendship. However, it is important to formalize the professional part of the relationship. Therefore, players and agents sign a player-agent agreement.
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- Parties of the Agreement
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Aside from the general information describing the player and the agent it is important to include the FIBA license number of the agent.
Note! FIBA explicitly forbids all kinds of dealings with unlicensed agents. Whoever, be it a player or a club, deals with the unlicensed agent is subject to sanctions imposed by FIBA.
- Engagement
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The player uses the services of the agent and the agent agrees to act as an agent of the player.
- Duties of the Agent
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The agent shall advise, assist and represent the player in connection with the engagement of the player as a skilled basketball player by clubs [worldwide]. Particularly, the agent shall introduce the player to any basketball club which might be interested in retaining his services, the agent shall negotiate on behalf of the player, shall deal in the bests interests of the player, etc.
- Compensation (agent fee)
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It is generally accepted that the agent fee is 10% of the player’s annual base NET salary for any contract procured.
In addition, the agent fee is usually paid not by the player but by the club directly to the agent. For this reason, it is important to set it in writing in both the player-agent agreement and the player-club agreement. Otherwise, the player will be liable for paying his agent.
In case the agent provides additional services, like sponsorship or promotional deals for the player, it is recommended to agree on a fixed percentage of each additional service provided.
- Term
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The term of the player-agent agreement cannot exceed two years. The parties may continue their professional relationship by signing a new written agreement.
- Cases where the agreement can be terminated earlier
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Different things might happen, so it is better to discuss “the worst case scenario” in advance.
FIBA Internal Regulations provide a list of what agents are allowed or not allowed to do. However, sometimes situations happen and the player decides to use the services of another agent while his agreement with his current agent is still in force. To avoid uncomfortable situations and bad blood it is wise to discuss conditions of early termination of the agent agreement in advance.
- Confidentiality
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- Applicable law
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Agents are licensed and supervised by FIBA. For this reason, it is recommended to include the paragraph stating that the parties agree that their relationship under this agreement, in particular, their respective rights and duties shall be governed by the FIBA Internal Regulations (for more info: https://www.fiba.basketball/internal-regulations/book3/players-and-officials.pdf ).
In addition, I strongly recommend including the BAT Clause.
Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT) is an international dispute solving institution recognized by FIBA (for more info: https://www.fiba.basketball/bat ). For any disputes to be admissible to BAT, the following arbitration clause must appear in a contractual agreement:
“Any dispute arising from or related to the present contract shall be submitted to the Basketball Arbitral Tribunal (BAT) in Geneva, Switzerland and shall be resolved in accordance with the BAT Arbitration Rules by a single arbitrator appointed by the BAT President. The seat of the arbitration shall be Geneva, Switzerland. The arbitration shall be governed by Chapter 12 of the Swiss Act on Private International Law, irrespective of the parties’ domicile. The language of the arbitration shall be English. The arbitrator shall decide the dispute ex aequo et bono.” (BAT Arbitration Rules, point 0.3)
- Concluding remarks
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- Parties and signatures
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