Sporting Club ordered to pay agent €62,500 over Ghana U23 striker Kwabena Owusu’s transfer

Published on: 10 December 2019

Ghanaian third tier side Sporting Club Accra has been slapped with €62,500 fine by a court in Ghana to be paid to a football agent for refusing to pay him his commission over the transfer of U23 striker Kwabena Owusu.

The Accra High Court ordered Sporting Club's  controversial President, Fiifi Parker Hanson, to pay licensed agent, Jose Andres Rosagaray Arenillas the whopping amount of money for the transfer fee they received for Owusu's move to Spanish side Leganes.

The amount represent the commission the agent, licensed by Spanish Football Association, should have been paid for brokering the Black Meteors' player's move to Leganes.

Fiifi Parker Hanson, who is also the coach of Sporting Club, entered an agreement with Mr Jose Arenillas in 2016 to find Kwabena Owusu a football club in Europe.

They agreed for the agent to find a club in either Spain or Portugal for Owusu and provided him with a letter of authorization to facilitate the assignment.

The parties agreed to a 25% commission for the intermediary should he help the player secure a club and Owusu eventually made a move to Leganes for 250,000 Euros in August 2017.

The court found that the club and its President acted contrary to the terms of the agreement by contracting another agent to do the same job it had provided “exclusive mandate” to Mr Jose Arenilla to undertake, while the contract subsisted.

Sporting Club argued that at the time of engaging the other agent, its contract with Mr Jose Arenillas had expired.

The plaintiff, Mr. Arenilla, however produced evidence which backed his claim that he had a valid agreement with Sporting in place when the new agent was engaged to do exactly what he was originally supposed to do.

According to the facts, Jose Arenillas, following the agreement, facilitated the movement of the player from Accra to Spain in March 2016 by footing all expenses including flight tickets, travel documentation and the general upkeep of the player.

Through the agent, Owusu went ahead to have trial stints with Racing Santander and Alcorcon but could not secure a permanent deal with either club.

Despite the exclusive mandate contained in the Jose Arenillas’ letter of authorization which was valid until June 30, 2018, Sporting Club went ahead to sign an exclusive deal with another agent to undertake the same task already assigned.

But the club contended that the arrangement with Jose Arenillas expired on June 31, 2017 and so it was entirely in its power to have engaged another agent, who eventually secured the player a permanent move to the Leganes Club.

It submitted that since Jose Arenillas’ letter of authorization had expired, he had no right to demand that commission be paid to him for the transfer.

The Court upon analyzing the evidence, ruled in favour of Jose Arenillas on the basis that he was able to prove his case that the letter of authorization was valid till June 30, 2018.

 

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