An agent got in touch about your child. How to tell if it is real

The age limits, in order

Three dates govern most of it, and they connect. In Sweden a player contract cannot be signed with a player who has not turned 15. Since an agent may contact a player at the earliest six months before that first possible professional contract, the contact threshold lands at 14 years and 6 months. And up to and including the calendar year a player turns 14 they are also tied to one club per playing season, which in practice limits when a club change can happen at all.

The Swedish FA’s own message to parents is blunter than the rulebook: agent representation is not realistically relevant in the younger ages. That is not a ban on dreaming — it is a statement that anyone telling you your child needs an agent now is either wrong or wants something else.

How an approach is supposed to work

If it is about a club change or a trial there is a set order, and it always begins with you: the player or guardian contacts their current club, then the new club, and only then do the clubs speak to each other. A club representative who makes first contact with a child at another club has made an illegal approach — even if it is only an invitation to one training session.

Social media is expressly named as a disallowed channel. A direct message identifying your child as a player at a particular club is not a grey area, and the most common version is exactly that: a friendly DM that "just wanted to hear if you might be interested". Report that kind of contact to the district association’s competition committee rather than debating it in the parents’ group chat, and keep screenshots with the date, sender and club.

Three questions, asked in writing

Ask them in the same channel the first contact arrived in, so the answers are on record. Evasiveness on any of them ends the conversation.

• May I see your FIFA ID and your digital ID card? Since 1 October 2023 a FIFA licence is required to work as an agent. The public register was removed in early 2024, so verification happens via the QR code on the ID card — or by asking the Swedish FA directly.
• Have you completed FIFA’s specific training for representing minors? The licence alone does not confer the right to work with children.
• Who pays you, and for what? As a rule an agent may not charge when the client is a minor. The exception is a fee in connection with the minor signing a professional contract.

Never pay

There is no situation in which a family should pay for a child to play, be seen or be assessed. Trials, medicals, travel packages, "registration fees", exposure to clubs, a contract taking a percentage of future transfers — all of it is either a breach of the rules or a product sold to someone afraid of missing out.

There are also outright scams aimed at Swedish football, where somebody poses as the sporting director of a foreign club, makes an offer, and then asks for a payment for administration or brokerage. The check is simple and boring: call the club on the number on the club’s own website, not the number in the email.

And never sign the same day. Take every document home, let the club’s youth lead read it, and read it yourself for three things: is the guardian’s signature required, how long does it run, and what does it cost to get out. A representation agreement with a minor must be signed by both the player and the guardian — without that signature it is not an agreement you can sign.

If somebody suggests going abroad

Assume it will not happen. International transfers of players between 10 and 17 are prohibited as a rule under FIFA’s regulations, and the review also covers the first registration of a foreign minor. The exceptions are few and narrow — in practice a family moving for reasons unrelated to football, an EU and EEA exception for 16 to 18-year-olds with strict requirements on schooling and accommodation, or a family living close to the border.

If somebody wants to proceed anyway: ask to see FIFA’s approval, not the club’s assurance that it usually works out. For a trial abroad there are separate rules covering trials involving minors, and a serious club knows them and can show the paperwork. Ask too what happens with school, and get the answer in writing. Serious people have an answer ready; the others change the subject.

The odds, honestly

There are viral percentages about how few become professionals that work by putting every child who ever kicked a ball in the denominator. Use figures from those already inside the system instead. A ten-year follow-up of just under 200 players aged 13 to 18 in top Spanish academies found that 4 per cent reached the top division. A review of 364 boys at one English academy found around 7 per cent held a professional contract. Those are the odds that apply after being selected.

Two more things are worth knowing before drawing conclusions from a selection. Junior success predicts senior success poorly: the overlap between successful juniors and successful seniors is around 7 per cent. And selections are systematically skewed — in Swedish football a player born early in the year has a distinctly better chance of being picked for a youth national team than one born late, which measures birth month and physical maturity rather than footballing ability.

The most counter-intuitive finding is that early entry into structured talent programmes correlates negatively with senior success. Those who went furthest as adults entered later, had a broader sporting background and trained less formally as children. So the question to ask is not how to move up fastest, but how to make sure your child is still playing in five years.

You apply to football upper secondary yourselves

No agent is needed, and nobody can arrange a place. Applications to a nationally approved sports programme, NIU, go directly to up to three schools between 1 September and 1 December, in parallel with the ordinary upper secondary application through the municipality. Both processes have to succeed.

Talk about NIU as a good school environment rather than as proof of talent. The Swedish FA says itself that NIU is not a precondition for turning professional, and plenty of professional players never went that route. There is also an alternative within ordinary upper secondary schooling for those who do not get in or do not want to move.

Common follow-up questions

Does my child need an agent?

Not during the youth years. There is nothing an agent can do for a 14-year-old that the club cannot do better, and before a first professional contract there is no deal to negotiate. Ask your club’s youth lead instead — they have seen more of these meetings than you ever will, and have no financial stake in the outcome.

We got a message from a foreign club. What do we do?

Do not reply the same day, and do not reply alone. Forward the message to your club, ask them to handle it club to club, and verify the club on its own website rather than on the details in the message. And if your child is under 18, an international transfer is prohibited as a rule regardless of how interested the club is.

Is it wrong to accept a trial?

No, if it arrives the right way. The initiative should have gone through you and your club, the new club should have spoken to the current one, nobody should be charging, and you should know how many others are there and what the outcome will consist of. What makes a trial questionable is rarely the session — it is how the invitation arrived.

Read next

• How do you get scouted in football?
• Contacting a young player: what the rules are