At their apartment in Italy, FC Como defender Sophie Howard’s partner is reading the instructions for a dog bed they’ve bought for the Bernedoodle that will arrive at the end of this month. It is probably far less complex than some of the documents that Howard, a defender capped more than 50 times for Scotland, will have read over a career representing herself in transfers between professional clubs. One of the few elite women’s footballers without an agent, Howard negotiated her own transfer fr
It is probably far less complex than some of the documents that Howard, a defender capped more than 50 times for Scotland, will have read over a career representing herself in transfers between professional clubs. One of the few elite women’s footballers without an agent, Howard negotiated her own transfer from Women’s Super League side Leicester City to top-flight Como last summer.
“I’ve connected with massive stakeholders in the club that I can have daily conversations (with) just because we had those exchanges every single day throughout the process,” Howard says. “I came to this club knowing exactly who was who and who I’d spoken to.”
It was not new ground for the 32-year-old, who is of the shrinking generation of active women’s footballers who can recall how the game has straddled the professional and amateur realms.
“My whole youth career, there was no need for an agent because the game wasn’t where it is now,” she says, having negotiated her moves from Germany’s Hoffenheim to then WSL club Reading in 2018 and to Leicester, with whom she won promotion from the second-tier Championship in her first season, two years later.
Howard’s story is an uncommon one in the top levels of a sport that, particularly during transfer windows for its men’s leagues, employs well-worn frameworks for talking about its agents, some of whom reach their own level of celebrity and notoriety. What are their motives? Who are they briefing? Are players and families enlisting their help too prematurely, on bad advice?
Only in the past five years has the transfer window in women’s football cultivated anything approaching a similar level of interest — the sport had its first million-pound player last summer when Olivia Smith moved from Liverpool to Arsenal — but as high up as tier three, players routinely operate without agents.
Where agents oversee contracts, boot deals and image rights in exchange for a percentage of the relevant income, players at National League level are likely to earn too little for agents to be interested in or comfortable taking that money. However, there are significant differences in resources between teams within the National League (some players will only receive expenses).
Players will sometimes have informal conversations with agents who may be able to offer guidance, share contacts or review offers. Some smaller clubs may not deal with agents; other agents may work with better players on low-value deals to build a stable of the most talented youngsters with a view to making money in the future.
“There’s some (agents) at National League level now — definitely not years ago, but now because there’s money involved,” Howard says. “Even at that level, because it’s often also younger players, they probably shy away from representing themselves, because it is daunting. Not a lot of people do it, and not a lot of talk about it.”
For the agents of WSL players and England internationals, the job has changed in the last few years.
Always about emotional and logistical support as much as financial, representatives of the higher-profile England players now find themselves navigating more lucrative sponsorship deals and higher-profile media requests following the team’s European Championship triumph in 2022. That was the sport’s most transformative commercial moment in the UK, particularly in generating interest among brands that agents, as several told The Athletic at the time, had hitherto had to “push doors down” to get in the room.
Howard noticed this some time ago. Ultimately, the deciding factor for going solo was realising that she could “tell my own story better than other people”.
“My value is way beyond what you see on the pitch only,” she adds. “My value was my consistency on the pitch, but also my leadership, what I’ve experienced, what I stand for. I believe only I can tell that about myself. Only I present who I am. In the last couple of years, I’ve really come to know the importance of knowing my value and therefore standing for that.
“I was probably also in a very good situation because I had a contract (from Leicester) on the table, so I could really go in and put a stamp on my value. Sometimes, it’s (about) having really tricky and difficult conversations, but really standing for what you believe.”
To help Howard get ready to negotiate in person with clubs, her brother, who owns a media company involved in the finance industry, ran “trial conversations” between the two of them, because “they’re not easy” meetings to have.
“They can be very challenging, because as football players, I don’t think we are prepared for these things,” Howard says. “I had to really practice them and my brother was absolutely brutal, coming back with things that potentially the clubs would say and trying to almost make me back down. The question my brother always (made me) ask was, ‘What do you want to get out of this?’ Once you know that — go for it.
“He taught me to be quite ballsy in that sense. Sometimes, it ended up with me saying, ‘No way,’ and standing and leaving the room. And that’s not easy to do. Three years ago, I would have never done that. Now, seeing actually how well it went. I absolutely would do that again.”
All players have their own relationship with the agent representing them. Some feel they make the clearest decisions when the agent has streamlined their options and cut out the noise. Others, like Howard, prefer to be there each step of the way.
“I want to understand the why behind your answers,” Howard says. “You often get insight and knowledge from how people respond. Sometimes, (the) most is said in the wordless things, when you don’t get a response.” When employing agents in the past, Howard found herself “pushing to know exactly what was being said”, and “chasing the agent and the club” as her contract wound down.
“Why am I needing someone to sort it, even though I’m already sorting it myself?” she mused.
Particularly at Leicester, where she played for five seasons, she enjoyed good relationships with the higher-ups at the club, so much so that it “then felt a bit bizarre that someone else was having these conversations, even though I saw these people every day. Equally, I understand if you’re trying to separate (identities). You’re a player, you’re an employee at the club, you’re focusing on your performance. You don’t want to get involved in the business.”
When Como first expressed their interest in summer 2024, Howard was still under contract at Leicester and both parties concluded it didn’t feel like the right time for a move. The Italians promised to be in touch again the next summer and stuck to their word, which appealed to Howard even as Leicester offered her a new contract.
She was unsure if moving abroad again, after three spells in Germany (where she was born) and two in the United States, was on the horizon. “I was very open and very direct because I just don’t like games (during negotiations),” she explains. “I don’t like keeping an option open just to see what I could get out of it if I know I’m not going to take it.”
Leicester did not respond to a request for comment from The Athletic.
Conversations with family changed her mind, encouraging her to try living overseas again. During those final few weeks at Leicester, the seed had been planted.
“I’m playing at Leicester and my full heart is at Leicester, but this is where it gets tricky, where you have to separate your business and do your football side,” Howard says. “When I was on the phone to other clubs, it was business, but my full professional self was giving it all to Leicester. Because up until the very end, I thought I was extending (her contract). I felt so at home there, and I always thought it was the place where I’d finish my career.”
Over a Zoom call involving a translator, Howard laid everything on the table.
“Seeing what Como, at this point, came back with almost hurt a bit, because I was like, ‘This guy doesn’t know me, and it seems like he values me more than the club I’ve given everything to for five years’.” The idea was difficult for Howard to think about, but is something that she says comes with representing yourself. There’s no shield: “These moments where you really have to make sure it stays professional (and) you don’t take it personally. Because that could ruin you.”
“Those weeks were stressful,” she says. “I really had to lean on the people around me and do my absolute best to separate it.”
The second phase of negotiations took place with Leicester’s manager Amandine Miquel, who had no sporting director at the time, “so there’s a crossover, because the same person you talk to in the office a day ago is your manager on the pitch. The same person who’s now your manager is also who you’re doing business with. You just have to be professional about it. You have no choice because I think the moment you let that emerge, I think that’s fatal. It affects your performance. (If) you’re going downhill, what grounds have you got to negotiate?”
Howard acknowledges that self-representation can be daunting, in part because of the breadth of skills the footballer-turned-agent must master: reading contracts, calculating their own financial worth, and liaising with sporting directors and managers who have their own perspectives and backgrounds.
She had no prior experience in negotiating, or of the traditional business world, before her football career. Her advice for those thinking of taking the same leap is to lead with honesty, know your value and be clear in what you want out of each conversation.
“I never tried to be a business person, or to make myself (out to be) more qualified than what I was,” Howard says.“I stayed true to myself, but I was ready to negotiate and I was ready to stand for what I believe. … (At Leicester) I think people gambled and didn’t expect that I’d stick to my guns, but I did.
“It’s not for everyone, and that’s also OK. There’s zero judgment. But if you want to take control of your career and you have no one so far that’s doing that for you who you fully trust, go for it. You can grow so much as a person through it. It is stressful, it’s very time-consuming, and your personal relationships suffer from it for the duration of the transfer window, but it’s so worth it.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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