The Previous Exam
FIFA partially deregulated the football agent industry in 2015…
It’s now realised that its intermediary experiment didn’t work, and is reintroducing a licensed agent regulatory regime. You can read a summary of the new Regulations here. On this page however, we’re going to focus on the exam itself.
Pre-2015, the exam was extremely difficult. Pass rates in England fluctuated between 6% and 35% – the highest pass rates in that range tended to occur towards the end of the old regulatory system, when FIFA knew it would be deregulating and seemingly put less effort into writing fiendishly difficult questions. It was common in the years leading up to 2015 for very few people in each country to pass, and at some sittings in some countries, not a single candidate passed.
The exam was less a test of whether or not a candidate would make a good agent, more an effective barrier to entry. Much of the knowledge required would never need to be known by an agent in order to properly represent their client – at best, an agent would need to be aware that there were rules and seek advice from a lawyer or consult the regulations themselves. There was simply no need for an agent to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules and regulations governing, for example, the procedures of the FIFA Players Status Chamber or Dispute Resolution Chamber!
Worse still, FIFA designed the questions to catch out candidates – even though each question was multiple choice, if a candidate didn’t know the answer, their best guess would likely be wrong.
Nonetheless, the high level of knowledge needed to successfully navigate the exam meant that only a small handful of agents passed it every six months, with many, many more failing and being unable to access the industry, formally at least. Since 2015’s ‘deregulation’, there are now roughly 10 times the number of registered intermediaries as there were licensed agents 8 years ago.
If you passed the exam pre-2015, you can take advantage of the Legacy Agent path and will not need to pass the new exam to conduct Football Agency Services, provided that (i) you apply for a a new licence before 30 September 2023, and (ii) you can prove that you were registered as an intermediary at a member association at some point between 1 April 2015 and 16 December 2022 (note, you will need to undertake more onerous levels of Continuing Professional Development each year: 40 credits per CPD calendar year for five years). If, however, you worked in player / club representation pre-2015 without having passed the exam, or you entered the industry afresh and registered as an intermediary at some point since 2015, you will now need to pass the exam in order to continue your career in player / coach / club representation.
That’s where we come in.
The new FIFA exam
There are many similarities between the old exam and the new one...
The new exam consists of 20 questions, all multiple-choice. Previously, 15 were FIFA questions and 5 were domestic questions, depending on where you sat the exam. This time round, all 20 questions are set by FIFA and focus on its rules. You can choose the member association at which you want to take the exam, so it doesn’t matter where you sit the exam – it’s a FIFA-only exam.
Previously, there were five scenarios, with three questions about each scenario. Under the new exam, the 20 questions will all be self-contained. On the one hand, it means that if a topic you don’t like comes up, it’ll be worth just 1 point out of 20 instead of 3. On the flip side, it means that to pass the exam, you’ll need a broad knowledge of all syllabus materials. Another difference from the previous exam is that multiple answers to a question may be correct. So, unlike before, knowing an answer is correct doesn’t necessarily mean you get the point – there could be other answers that are correct and you’d need to identify them all. Some questions will be scenario based, others direct questions on a regulatory provision.
The pass rate is 15/20 and the exam lasts 60 minutes. You’ll take it electronically at your national association (on your own laptop) and a notable difference from last time is that it will be an open book exam, so you can refer to your study materials / source documents, both hard copies and electronically on your screen. Easy, we hear you say! Not so, unfortunately.
Having access to the relevant Regulations is a big help – it means you won’t need to learn absolutely everything in the Regulations, but a word of caution: the exam will still require significant preparation. Probing, direct questions on different aspects of a diverse set of regulations, and more to the point complex factual scenarios, take time to consider and answer even if you have the requisite knowledge. A lack of preparation will make it extremely difficult.
Now, we’re not just saying that because we provide an exam preparation service! 20 questions in 60 minutes means 3 minutes a question. It can take half your allocated time just reading and digesting the question and potential answers, let alone being able to identify and find the relevant regulation, understand it, check other regulations that interact with it, and apply your findings to the question and multiple answers, sometimes involving a complex factual scenario. Passing the exam will require a detailed knowledge of the regulations, with the open book resource being there as a back-up on some questions, to quickly check an answer or a particular regulatory stipulation.
All this resulted in a worldwide pass rate in April 2023 of 52% - so out of the 3,800 candidates who sat the exam, 1,962 passed and 1,838 didn’t. This confirms that this is clearly a passable exam - the pass rate is significantly higher than the average pass rate pre-2015. But it’s also not a walk in the park - nearly half of the candidates sitting it did not pass, despite many of them putting in significant preparatory work. The pass rate amongst candidates we tutored in April and September 2023 was over 80%, so if you want to give yourself the best chance of obtaining your licence, get in touch…
The syllabus
It’s pretty broad!
You’ll need an in-depth knowledge of the following FIFA documents:
The FIFA Football Agent Regulations (2022 ed.)
The FIFA Statutes (2022 ed.)
The FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (May 2023 ed.)
The FIFA Disciplinary Code (2023 ed.)
The FIFA Code of Ethics (2023 ed.)
The FIFA Procedural Rules Governing the Football Tribunal (March 2023 ed.)
The FIFA Guardians: Child Safeguarding Toolkit
The FIFA Guardians Safeguarding Essentials: Course 1
The FIFA Clearing House Regulations (2022 ed.)
Various support materials, including the FIFA Football Agent FAQs (March 2023 ed.)
Those documents are contained in the ‘FIFA Agent Exam Study Materials’, which you can find here. The study materials run to no less than 705 pages.
Roughly 40% of the questions you face (roughly 8 out of 20) will concern the FIFA Football Agent Regulations; roughly 30% of the exam questions (roughly 6 out of 20) will concern the FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players – as such, those two documents are the focal point of our mock exam papers here. But you will need to know the other Regulations in detail as well, so our mock questions also test your knowledge of the remaining documents in the syllabus.
Candidates who sat the April and September 2023 exams found that some questions were not directly focused on a particular regulatory provision, but instead tested one’s ability to think of practical issues around the regulations - so, our mock questions prepare you for that as well.
Our exam preparation service prepares you for the exam, and the exam alone. We don’t teach you how to be an agent. We focus on one thing: getting you through the exam.
When can you sit the exam?
The NEXT exam will be held on 22 MAY 2024
FIFA’s new Football Agent Regulations formally entered into force in two stages: (i) Articles 1 to 10 and Articles 22 to 27, which generally relate to the processes for obtaining a licence, came into effect on 9 January 2023; and (ii) the remaining Articles, which generally relate to acting as a football agent and the obligations of football agents and Clients, technically came into effect on 1 October 2023 (but their implementation has been partial as a result of the considerable legal challenges brought against them). The application window in respect of the exam on 22 May 2024 is open from 9 January 2024 to 31 March 2024. There is no restriction on the number of times you can sit the exam before you pass, so if you didn’t pass in April or September 2023, you can sit the exam again in May 2024.
Now that the Regulations have technically come into effect, only FIFA licensed agents - those agents who were licensed pre-2015 and obtained their new licence through the Legacy Agent path and those who have passed the new exam and obtained their licence - will be permitted to conduct Football Agency Services. Anyone else will need to wait for, and pass, the next exam to operate in the industry as a licensed football agent. The exam will take place on a six-monthly basis following implementation of the Regulations.
How can we help
Put simply, we’re experts in helping people pass the FIFA exam…
Pre-2015 we helped more candidates pass the exam than anyone else worldwide. We ran the most successful tuition service in the industry, globally, and we’re using that experience and know-how, as well as our experience in operating as internationally-known sports lawyers working at the top level of the football industry for 15 years, to once again get candidates through the exam. Over 80% of the candidates we prepared in the lead up to the April and September 2023 exams passed.
This is very much an international service. We have tutored candidates from over 15 countries – as the exam is truly international (with all 20 questions being set by FIFA), we look forward to working with aspiring agents all around the world.
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