Arsenal fined for Calum Chambers deal after using unlicensed agent who turned down a role in S Club 7

Arsenal were yesterday fined £60,000 over the signing of Calum Chambers from Southampton in 2014. The fine, along with a warning as to their future conduct, centred on the involvement in the deal of Phil Ercolano, an unlicensed agent who, in the early 2000s, turned down a role in S Club 7.

The Football Association yesterday released its written reasons for the sanction, after Arsenal had pleaded guilty to using the services of Ercolano, as well as being found guilty of a separate charge relating to the failure to disclose Ercolano’s involvement at the time. Arsenal last night said they “acted in good faith” throughout the transfer.

The agent who was disclosed on the paperwork of Chambers’ transfer, Alan Middleton, was fined £30,000 and given a three-month ban, itself suspended for 18 months. There is no suggestion that Chambers, no longer represented by Ercolano or Middleton, acted improperly. Ercolano played football at the Burnley Centre of Excellence before becoming a model, signing with Simon Fuller, the brains behind the Spice Girls, Pop Idol and S Club 7. Ercolano turned down a part with that group, becoming a talent agent himself, establishing his company Cassius Management in 2009.

In May 2014 Ercolano established Cassius Sports Company, although he was not a licensed football agent, having failed the FA’s Football Agent’s exam. But Ercolano was widely thought to represent Chambers, with the player’s stepfather Steve Moss working for Cassius Sports.

When Arsenal tried to sign Chambers in the summer 2014 their chief transfer fixer Dick Law made contact on 24 July with Ercolano, believing him to be Chambers’ agent. Arsenal’s £16m offer was accepted by Southampton and Chambers, Ercolano and Moss headed the next day for a medical and negotiations at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground.

They were joined there by Middleton, who worked with Ercolano for Cassius, and is an FA-licensed agent and lawyer. Law, Middleton and Ercolano negotiated personal terms for Chambers’ deal with Arsenal. When that was agreed, Law and Middleton signed the Agent Declaration Form (AG1), confirming that no other agents were involved in the transaction or negotiation. In October 2014, Arsenal made payments totalling £150,000 to Cassius Sports, from which Middleton was to be paid £30,000. The independent regulatory commission, though, found that Ercolano “played an active and substantial role in the contract negotiations” on 25 July. “[Ercolano’s] enthusiasm allowed him to stray into areas of agency activity which he was not permitted to conduct and which was not disclosed by others.” The fact that Law and Arsenal, in the commission’s words, “failed to carry out any checks” on whether Ercolano was a licensed agent is why they admitted the charge of using an unauthorised agent.

The fact that both Law and Middleton signed the AG1 form, neglecting to mention Ercolano, and “failed to take reasonable care”, proved the second charge against them. Middleton was also found to have worked on behalf of an unauthorised agent. This led the commission to describe it as a case of partial “fronting”, the practice of using a licensed agent to do a deal after an unauthorised agent conducted some agent activity.

The commission found that there was “no intention” from Arsenal or Middleton “to mislead or misrepresent the true position” to the FA, but that the breaches were still “serious”.

Arsenal said last night that lessons had been learnt from this issue. “We acted in good faith throughout in this transfer and had no reason to believe that the player’s representative was not authorised to be involved in the transfer negotiations,” a club spokesperson said. “The FA fully recognised that there was no intention to mislead on Arsenal’s part. We have improved our procedures to prevent this happening again.”

Middleton, who still works for Cassius Sports Management, released a statement yesterday on similar lines. “I am pleased that the FA commission found that the only case to answer was a minor procedural error, which was a genuine oversight by ourselves and Arsenal FC,” Middleton said.

“As a company we take our responsibilities extremely seriously.”