Chris Bergin says agents don't trust Revs

Another question is, who else did we sign this way, as Bergin's 'another of the Fernando to Sunil to New England...' implies this has happened before.

 

The only circumstance I can think of is this:

As of March 2001, FIFA put forth a new set of rules and regulations that laid out what was necessary to to obtain a license to be a player's agent.

You can read through them here:

http://www.fifa2.com/en/organisation/player/playeragents.html

That being said, U.S. soccer also has their own set of rules and regulations (based on FIFA's) directed towards those who want to obtain a players' agent license from the Federation.

My guess... and this is simple speculation, is that the Revolution have dealt with any number of inndividuals (perhaps Clavijo as mentioned) who have acted in the capacity as agents without having the necessary licenses as mandated by FIFA and the USSF. This would especially be a problem if the Revolution we're dealing with such people, paying them under the table and perhaps in doing so, taking away business and $$$ from etsbalished, licensed agents.

If this were the case, then if I were a well-known MLS player agent like Dan Segal or Pat McCabe I'd be pissed as Hell, and might even shy away from trying to deal with a club that engages in such practices.

I mean, look at it this way: if a player's contract is worked out by an un-licensed agent (or equivalent) who doesn't have the full criteria to do so, a player can find himself being taken advantage of by the club, can be entered into an unfavorbale contract with the league, or could even find himself making less than fair market value for his or her services.

You could even have someone acting in this capacity who may embelish the resume or CV of a player without proper documentation or attribution, effectively "padding" their resume to help increase their desireability.

So in the case of Vasquez... if in deed this is an example of the above I'd have some concerns.

That being said, who knows what the process was of obtaining the player. Hell, I just want to see if the guy can play.

The Magpie

 

:::cough:::
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Carlos Semedo

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This must be quite serious. This is the first time Chris Bergin criticized anything about MLS.

 

I don't know the deal here, but this sounds like the same kind of thing some of the Metro fans would rag on Octavio Zambrano. He was acting as an agent (official or otherwise) for certain players who would sign with his team. He would get a kickback and the team would be saddled with a crap-ish player.

In any event, I can't imagine Nicol would stand for anything like this, especially since he's been so cautious so far with making sure we sign the "right" player. I doubt very much this guy is another Carlos Simedo...

Tom

 

Re: Re: Chris Bergin says agents don't trust Revs

Your saying it's "repitition" rather than "rotation," right?

 

Do you know where Patrick McCabe works, now that Woolf Associates no longer really has agents?

I seem to remember a couple years ago 5-6 of the Revs being represented by McCabe (so I don't know how much of a problem he has with the revs), not sure how many are now.

 

Re: Re: Re: Chris Bergin says agents don't trust Revs

Either/or.

 

chris bergin pulls rumor out of his ass all the time. his word is not to be trusted.

 

Only a rube believes everything Bergin "writes".

 

You know, this whole scenario isn't that far out of the question.

We KNOW that FC and Sunil and SN are still "friends" and all talk to each other on a somewhat regular basis. And we also know that FC has already sent at least one player the Revs' way for a trial - remember Cristian Uribe?

I could see some of the "full-time" agents being somewhat upset about this situation.

I don't KNOW that FC set up Vazquez's trial with the Revs, but I wouldn't be shocked at all if he did.

 

REwrites

 

I honestly don't get where all this anti-Bergin sentiment comes from. Can anyone give a specific example of a situation or event when Bergin misled the soccer-following public?

 

As near as I can tell, it comes from people who don't understand the difference between rumor and news....

 

Yes. Especially odd coming from BigSoccer posters, considering rumors are our bread and butter.

 

Just curious, what exactly is meant by this, both in general and in regards ot this thread? As someone who's never heard of or at least never noticed Chris Bergin, I can't speak to how accurate anything he says is, but it seems like what he's reporting here would be considered news.

"...
A number of agents won't touch NE cause of that situation."

Sounds like he's saying that he has first hand knowledge that a number of agents refuse to talk to the Revolution. If the quote was something like 'a bunch of agents can't stand dealing with the Revs because the team is not trustworthy', I would say it could be considered a rumor. But the above quote seems rather definitive, at least the word won't is pretty definitive (not much wiggle room there). To me at least, you can't make a definitive statement like that one, and then try and hide behind the "it's just a rumor" shield. Either you know it, or you're embellishing (or perhaps even fabricating).

Again, I know nothing about any background here, I'm just curious.

 

or invents. chris makes things up and gets people fired up about his 'rumors', most of which don't pan out to anything coming close to being true. however crafty chris usually starts out these rumors in such a vague way based on usually already published reports. he gets people then fired up like he has some inside connection when really he's just pulling stuff out his ass.

the second side of his 'reporting' site is taking information and quotes from other articles and simply rewritingthem without attribution. you see in journalistic circles named sources and attribution in general are pretty big things. excuse me for being a stickler for little things like accountability and accuracy.

 

I really think you are off base about Chris Bergin and the things he posts. He is basically a reporter and follows the same basic principles as a reporter, ie, get the item confirmed from a second source. He is extremely well connected within the US-UK soccer community and keeps solid and regular contact with all the clubs and agents. If the things he posts don't always turn out it's because of the nature of sports personnel movements and not his verasity. I've been following his work for awhile and find him to be an honest and mostly accurate players in the soccer news business.

George

 

Ridiculous.

Chris does not "make things up", and it's dishonest of you to claim he does without providing even one, single example.

This bashing of a good guy is just reverse-snobbery; guys who want to pretend that they have some "wise" about US Soccer say this sort of thing about him all the time, and it's crap.

Most MLS executives return his calls. Most players do too. He says up front whether something is just a rumour he's heard or a stone cold fact. If you're not capable of actually READING what the guy says, then you should stay away.

Many of us actually LIKE hearing some of the rumors and league scuttlebutt he comes across. Some of you apparently would prefer to simply read MLS press releases. Your choice.

I can give you a list a mile long of MLS news items that he reported, accurately, long before anybody else. You can't provide me with a SINGLE instance where he "made something up" or was anything less than honest.

Chris Bergin is an invaluable resource for MLS fans.

Absolutely a lie. Look who's "making stuff up" now.

Not even ONE example. Just slander. Really nice.

 

Well, it was posted in the "Rumours" section of the bulletin board, so I would count this as a rumor. He is being pretty definitive in his statement, which leads me to believe he has heard of this from more then one person(agent), but he probably hasn't gotten comments from the club or other sources. Given the delicate nature of the accusations, I wouldn't be suprised if it never goes beyond the rumor stage.

As far as Chris' accuracy goes, others have defended him nicely, so I will just say this: Read the stories for a month or two and decide for yourself.

 

Maxim-1,

You're right, a lot of the information that Chris passes along doesn't seem to pan out, but that doesn't mean it's un-true. If anything that's reflective of both the game he follows and in the style in which he covers it - it's fluid.

Ussocceruk differs from any number of on-line or more traditional media services in that he "reports" on a real-time basis, but he does so in such a way where there's an attempt to distinguish between whan is rumor and what is fact. So what you see and hear in the discussion forums is usually some component of a larger story that may or may not materialize into something bigger, insight and/or access one isn't usually afforded in amny other places save perhaps for the MLS Confidential that Soccer America puts out.

The problem comes when certain fans pass along such hot-stove league talk as fact, or at least give the appearance as such, and when said fans question these fans the source is attributed to Chris. It's like the old game of telephone: what starts off as one thing could turn out to be construed as something decidedly different in the end, although the source remains the same.

Chris is a good guy, and is an enthusiastic supporter of the game as I know, and early on in his efforts for TeamTalk that got him into trouble somewhat, but that was more due to a lack of ture journalistic experience.

The fact of the matter is he does have a ready number of sources, be they agents, players, colleagues, coaches, league officials, etc. This I know to be true. Hell, the really interesting stuff is what goes on behind the scenes, and Chris attempts to provide some glimpse into that.

It's a good bit more interesting than your typical boilerplate stories that tend to appear most regularly in the broadsheets and tabloids.

He'll make mistakes... no journalist is immune to that, and he continues to learn. But saying that he effectively makes things up is entirely unfair and really doesn't ring true in his case.

The Magpie

 

No, but I don't think that was the implication regarding Semedo.

I think the "cougher" was referring to the dirty business about how Semedo was released while injured, apparently having signed some waiver written in English, which he later claimed to have not understood due to the language difference.

A lot of people think the Revs hit Semedo below the belt on that one, and it's a perfect example of why an agent SHOULD be involved for a player's protection.

In the Revs defense, they have a whole different management group running the show this season, and unless there are still ongoing issues, it would be unfair and a disservice to their clients to "avoid" a team.

Even so, I thought all this supposed to be done through MLS central, so I don't see how this is an issue (unless the agents are pushing their clients to decline any potential assignments to the Revs).

 

give me a break. you're blind if you don't think what i say is right. every single article on the site i rewritten from somwhere else. the Grimandi situation was a perfect example of him using unnamed sources to spread rumors. in terms of basic reporting... ATTRIBUTION. that does not include unnamed sources, and does include giving credit for where you're taking quotes from.

that message board is ridiculous... "big news coming, sources tell me that a player from somewhere is going to one mls team. very popular. huge news. waiting to confirm will keep you updated." that type of thing happens all the time he plays craps with the truth, sometimes he just happens to roll sevens.

 

Actually, I think you have a very bad case of Optical Rectitus* yourself.

(* Optical Rectitus is a disease in which, due to poor attention to the facts, the individual gets his eye muscles crossed with his rectal muscles causing a ****************** outlook on life)