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Fans of Premier League teams will next month discover for the first time how much their clubs have been paying agents. Under new Football Association rules, records will be made publicly available detailing all fees received by agents from clubs throughout the leagues.

An FA spokesman said: "The main driver is transparency. For the FA, as for other governing bodies, transparency is one of the key pillars of a sensible regulatory regime. We updated our regulations in the summer and they now provide for the publication of agents' fees paid both by clubs and players. This will, for the first time, provide an overall picture of the scale of the football agency business."

A similar system already in place in the Football League has been running for five years but a wider requirement is being introduced for all clubs. The rules state: "Clubs, players, authorised agents and exempt solicitors agree to the publication by the FA after 30 November each year of the total amount paid by players to authorised agents and exempt solicitors during the period 1 October of the previous year to 30 September of that year."

The FA has been collating figures relating to agents' payments since its reform of the regulations governing their activities in 2007. It is understood the Premier League was fully supportive of the new measures, although clubs had previously resisted the move when challenged about the success of the Football League scheme.

Since its introduction in 2004, the Football League's initiative has coincided with a continued reduction on the amounts agents have received. Brian Mawhinney, the chairman of the Football League, welcomed the FA's development.

"Our figures show a downward trend in the amounts going to agents and an upward trend in the number of clubs not paying agents at all," he said. "I think it is wrong to look at a particular set of figures; the strength of the process is that it gives a sense of what is happening over a period of time. It allows fans to question their own clubs. We've never been running an anti-agent campaign, we are opening up how our clubs operate for the benefit of fans."

Lord Mawhinney did concede that his league's figures are based on data provided voluntarily by clubs but considers them to be "broadly right". The FA's system will benefit from the traceability of payments passing through its transfer-finance clearing house.

Agents fees have long been a thorny issue between club owners and their staff. In 2004 the then Manchester United shareholders, John Magnier and JP McManus, directed 99 questions at the club's board "which [related] to particular transactions with which we are concerned". The letter prompted Manchester United plc to publish a breakdown of player agent payments. However, when the Glazers bought the club and took if private in 2005 the practice was ceased.

At that time MPs called on all agents' fees to be investigated by HM Revenue and Customs. Coincidentally, on Wednesday the Portsmouth chief executive, Peter Storrie, was charged with cheating the public revenue and arranging for a signing-on fee to be paid to a player via an agent with "intent to defraud", in the 2003 transfer of Amdy Faye. Storrie has said he will "defend the allegations in the strongest possible terms and is entirely confident that he will be exonerated".

In a separate development, the financially troubled Premier League club Hull City have launched an internal investigation into the payment of £5.5m to agents in the past two years.

There are hopes that with the FA ensuring more transparency over the money being diverted out of the game there will be a tendency for clubs to negotiate down the amounts demanded by agents. However the FA privately insists it is not seeking to micromanage fees, leaving payments as a matter for clubs as commercial organisations.

(Source: Guardian.co.uk)