I recently tweeted about Liverpool Football Club's financial situation. Within the thread I referred to the club's spend on intermediaries - or agents as they're more commonly known. This thread provides further detail on the level of expenditure towards intermediaries by LFC.

All clubs in England, from the Premier League down to the National League, are supposed to declare how much they spend in the twelve months between 1st February and the following 31st January (which covers the summer and winter transfer windows).

The total amounts spent by each club are published on the FA website (in accordance with FIFA regulations) and they also provide a list of transactions - but without the payment values - too. They can be found here: https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/policies/intermediaries/intermediaries-transactions

I went back and analysed spend (focusing on the fourteen clubs that took part in the Premier League each season) for the four years between 1st February 2016 - 31st January 2020- and it revealed an interesting story where Liverpool is concerned.

The following graph shows that over the four years, Liverpool spent more on intermediaries than any other club (they spent £114.7m).

The average per year works out at close to £30m.

This next graph shows the number of individual payments to intermediaries. In contrast to the first two graphs, nine other clubs paid out towards more individual transactions than the Reds.

This is perhaps the most telling of all the graphs I'm presenting. It shows that Liverpool spent significantly more per transaction (at £1.17m) than all other clubs- with second place Chelsea spending nearly half per transaction (average of £614k).

The following graph tells a similar story. It shows spend on intermediaries relative to outlay on transfers- and Liverpool is far and away ahead of the other thirteen PL clubs I've analysed (transfer outlay figures sourced from http://transfermarkt.co.uk ).

This is perhaps the only graph that puts the club in a slightly more favourable light- it presents spend on intermediaries relative to turnover, with four clubs spending a higher percentage of their turnover on agents than Liverpool.

For the period betwen 1st February 2019 - 31st January 2020, Liverpool spent £30.309m on payments to intermediaries- despite spending less than £10m on transfers. Below is the full list of transactions that, combined, make up the £30m figure.

Reviewing that list, which is mostly to new contract deals for academy players, as well as low-value outgoings, three incomings and contract renewals for Ox, Origi and Matip- the £30m figure seems extraordinarily excessive.

To put that figure into context, Aston Villa - who spent over £140m on signings last summer - spent only £6.7m on agents; approximately one-fifth the figure Liverpool spent. Granted, player wages also influence outlay on intermediaries, but that's pretty stark.

Had this been a one year issue, you could put it down as a blip. However, there appears to be a pattern of Liverpool paying agents significantly more than other Premier League clubs and this appears to something the club does quite intentionally.

I am at a loss to explain why the club feels the need to pay such excessive amounts to agents, but one clear consequence is that it naturally reduces available funds to spend in the transfer market.

Granted, one or two clubs in the Premier League may find 'alternative' ways to look after intermediaries which are not fully dislosed to the FA, but that certainly isn't the case across all clubs in the League. This is a clear case of Liverpool over-paying agents.

The club operates tremendously well in many respects - and paying for the entire Kirkby redevelopment over two years without borrowing money has to be commended - but this deliberate strategy of paying excessive amounts to intermediaries is both concerning and frankly baffling.

On the flip-side, another key area of growth from an expenditure perspective has been wages. This particular area of investment has brought clear benefits and moved the club from being a stepping stone to a destination club. I will delve into this area in more detail next week.