Youth football expert defends agents despite 'cowboys' admission

We’re delighted to welcome the founder of Kinetic Academy Harry Hudson as our exclusive columnist. Each week the youth football expert will be giving his views on the biggest talking points on wonderkids across the UK…

Modern-day football has seen agents come to the forefront of transfer negotiations but youth football expert Harry Hudson has defended the profession.

Hudson is the founder of the Kinetic Academy, based in South London, which provides the platform for young people to pursue their footballing dreams and keep them out of trouble at the same time.

Rangers midfielder Joe Aribo and former Sunderland striker Josh Maja have been the two standout names to come through Kinetic onto the professional game so far since the foundation began in 2011.

Kinetic only deal with a small pool of agents when they are negotiating deals for their young players that they know are not in the game for selfish reasons but Hudson is adamant that the media only ever report the bad stories.

“Agents in football get a really bad reputation,” Hudson said exclusively to The Football Wonderkids. “No one speaks good of agents.

Subscribe to Football Insider TV now

“There are a lot of cowboys out there but there are also some very good agents that actually put the young people first.

“We work with a select few, no one exclusively, that we know will look after the best interests of the player first before themselves.

“For example, when one of their players is going to sign their first professional deal, they’ll waive agent’s fees until they get to a stage where they are signing their second or third pro deal.

“But there are some people who are trying to be agents because they just see the pound signs but that doesn’t work because there is really money to be made until that young person signs their second pro deal.”

As of today, 59 players have graduated from the Kinetic Academy with Sheffield Wednesday signing midfield general Bobby Dunn most recently.

In other Kinetic Academy news, Hudson revealed exclusively to us the 60th graduate from his foundation that will be signing for Stevenage in the coming days.