Rainbow Armbands

[capitanus]

Do you remember John Maisano's agent, Louie Sticcia. Every time he had a half decent game he was on Morton Unofficial posting links to any site that picked up the Champ Manager style press release that he would spam everyone with afterwards.

 

Edit to add:

 

I googled him, it's Lou Sticca, and he is Managing Director of Tribal Sports Group. One of the websites he always linked to was tribalfootball.com

 

He even has a Wikipedia page about himself where he claims credit for a lot of things. However he doesn't mention his instrumental role in John Maisano's transfer from Morton to Stranraer. Surely that must have been a career highlight.

[TRVMP]

Lou Sticca is such an agent name. Not even just football, he could have managed vaudeville. You have the last name Sticca and you call your kid Lou and you might as well just buy him a neon blue suit and a fedora.

[capitanus]

Lou Sticca is such an agent name. Not even just football, he could have managed vaudeville. You have the last name Sticca and you call your kid Lou and you might as well just buy him a neon blue suit and a fedora.

Aye, singing "Mongo Number Five"

 

IIRC he was also Stuart Riddells agent.

[TRVMP]

Chennaiyin against Kerala Blasters just kicked off. Dimitar Berbatov presumably injured as he's not in the Kerala matchday squad.

[capitanus]

I used to follow Asian football very closely for professional reasons. On the subject of dodgy agents, I was once given a serious offer to help hype certain players from a certain Asian country due to another writer's connections with agent(s) there. I said no. This was wise because I don't think the agent had anyone good on his books. (Oh, and it was the right thing to do n'at.)

 

The reason is the pay in MLS, except for the absolute top players, is absolutely crap compared to England. A few years ago George John, one of the better defenders in MLS prior to his serious injury, was earning less at FC Dallas than he would if he were, say, an electrician or a Home Depot store manager. All MLS salary data is public, see here: https://mlsplayers.org/salary-guide/ . Certainly standard of living can be very good (FCD are based in Frisco, a wealthy Dallas suburb, and you can live in American middle-class bliss there fairly cheaply) but if even relatively high-profile players like Tesho Akindele are earning five figures*, you can see why Europe is a bigger draw.

 

*to be clear, Tesho earns $95k, which is a very comfortable middle-class income in the US, and I don't want to sound like Ed and make out like it's pennies. I mean only in comparison to England, where even in the second tier that would be considered a pittance. The highest-paid player at FCD, Roland Lamah (ex-Anderlecht, Osasunsa, Ferencvaros) earns $600k a year, or around £9k a week. Good money, absolutely - but it would make him a squad player at most Championship sides. Then at the other end of the scale the likes of Sebastian Giovinco at Toronto are on megabucks.

With regards to MLS pay in comparison with the English Championship and even the English League One, granted they may pay more however there are players from the Scottish leagues that have went down there only to come back with their tail between their legs to join a bit part club in the SPL, or even the SPFL Championship.

 

Just talking from a personal point of view, if I was a SPL player that went to England and it never worked out for me I would be tempted to try another league before I came back to be a jobber at the likes of Partick, Kilmarnock or Dundee.

 

The glamour of Dens Park or Firhill vs. The suburbs of Dallas for a couple of years on a middle-managers wage (which would probably be similar anyway) is a bit of a no-brainer to me.