McKay - Thief - **** or just good at his job you decide

[Greenman]

IT IS fair to assume that Willie McKay is not on Rod Petrie's Christmas card list. The Hibernian chairman is hardly alone. In the summer disgruntled Wigan fans greeted the Scottish agent with a petition and a placard reading "McKay, you thief" as he arrived at the club's training ground.

"Wigan? They should give me the freedom of the place given the profit they made on Pascal Chimbonda," observed McKay playfully. Whatever you think of his modus operandi - and plenty of people are prepared to offer opinions on that - he does have a point. And he is seldom reluctant to make it.

Paul Jewell was able to reshape his side on the £4.5 million profit his club recouped on the defender; plucked from relative obscurity in Bastia and sold on to Tottenham a year later after handing in a transfer request within minutes of the final whistle of Wigan's concluding game of last season.

It was typical McKay, utilising his sources in France and his contacts in the British game. Some would say the timing of the request was typical McKay too. Rangers turned an even bigger profit on Jean-Alain Boumsong, who arrived at Ibrox as a free transfer and was sold to Newcastle for £8m six months later. Eyebrows were raised, and so were McKay's financial fortunes.

Given Boumsong's struggles at St James' Park, it is probably no surprise that the Toon Army are about as enamoured with the Glaswegian as those at Easter Road, who believe McKay has deliberately unsettled Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson in pursuit of a quick return.

"The problem is that fans only hear one side of it," said McKay, whose journey from one-time bookmaker to major player in the world of football agency has accrued him a home in Monte Carlo and now a racehorse stable just outside Doncaster.

"Look at Hibs. According to the club, Scott and Kevin were perfectly happy until I became their agent. Well, they weren't. They are not being paid what they are worth.

I don't think Rod Petrie was delighted when they appointed me as their agent because he couldn't walk over me. He knew the club would have to play fair - and I don't think they have been."

Perhaps part of the reason that McKay provokes such strong reactions from people is his unabashed nature. To some, he personifies the worst excesses of football agency. The game has made him rich, and he is the sort of character quite happy to let it be known that he is good at his job - hence the £500,000 commission he made on the Boumsong deal.

"Agents are easy targets. They always have been and always will be. It is easy for managers to blame us at the same time as conveniently forgetting how we got hold of that centre-half they needed. I know I'm not the most popular man in the game, but that is because I'm very successful and a lot of people out there are jealous," he said matter-of-factly.

If he is being portrayed as akin to the Devil Incarnate around Leith these days, he has a thick enough hide to take it. And dish some back. "Rod Petrie is the most difficult man in the world to deal with," McKay said. "He is what I would call pennywise and pound foolish.

"It is OK to talk about not wanting to break your wage structure, but there are times you have to be clever in looking after your top assets. I don't think there is a single player in the Hibs squad who wouldn't agree that Scott Brown is worth more to the club than he is currently being paid.

"And when you look at some of the players who have left Hibs - the likes of Derek Riordan, Gary Caldwell and Ian Murray - I reckon Rod Petrie has lost the club around £4m with those deals alone."

It is one view. The other is that both Brown and club captain Thomson were happy enough to sign long-term deals back in March, under the guidance of their previous agent. If, let's say, £1,800 a week was acceptable then, how come it is suddenly akin to slave wages now a new transfer window is looming and potential suitors are stalking the pair?

McKay's take on their situation is simple enough. He says they were badly advised, and in addition, former manager Tony Mowbray had given the pair assurances that the issue of their wages would be revisited should they continue to show strong form between March and the end of the season. Both claims have been rejected by Scott Fisher, their previous agent.

The solution, as McKay sees it, is also simple enough; up their salaries to reflect their transfer market value and write something into their contracts which allows them to move on - and Hibs to recoup a suitable sum - when they naturally outgrow the club.

He says he is ready to do that sort of deal without taking a slice of the financial pie himself; and he isn't expecting Hibs to mortgage Easter Road to fund it.

"A club like Nottingham Forest would probably pay the boys £8,000 a week and they're not even a Championship side. Hibs are in the SPL and they are paying the same as the fourth division down in England. Now we're not talking about that sort of money - it is more likely to be half the market rate, but Hibs aren't playing fair by valuing the boys at £3m and then paying them what they are.

"I'm not here to represent Hibs, my job is to represent Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson and that is what I'm doing. Now, if you ask Scott Brown's parents about me, I think they'd tell you they are very happy with the job I'm doing."

While McKay offers the familiar line about both players being 100% committed to the club despite the wage wrangle, the reality is that "unhappy" players soon become "unsettled" before the seemingly inevitable lucrative relocation elsewhere.

The agent himself insists he isn't in the business of moving players on for the sake of it. He points to helping convince goalkeeper Allan McGregor to stay at Rangers and fight for his first-team place and a new contract. He is, by his measure, a fixer not a spoiler.

When Alex McLeish phoned him looking for a "leader" for his Hibs team, McKay suggested Franck Sauzee and brokered the deal. When Gordon Strachan was looking for a striker while at Southampton, it was McKay who suggested a £1.5m deal for Guingamp's front man. Chairman Rupert Lowe would only authorise a £1m transfer and the player ended up moving to Marseille.

The player in question was Didier Drogba.

While he knows there are times it suits a particular manager or chairman's purposes to criticise him, he's been around long enough to know they'll still be happy enough to call on his services when needed. It is how the wheels of this particular business are greased.

How greasy is what concerns many. When the football authorities and fraud squad in France delved into transfer dealings, McKay co-operated fully and threw open his books and his house to investigators. He says that was because he had nothing to hide. But you cannot do the sort of high-profile deals that McKay has done without attracting some degree of suspicion.

"I got a couple of phone-calls after the Panorama bungs' programme from people who said they expected me to figure in it!" he joked. "I just thought it was a soft' programme. We've now got Lord Stevens investigating deals in England. Well, in France it was a leading judge and their serious fraud squad. They looked at all my papers and found everything was above board."

This week he will take a holiday in Dubai with his wife. He'd promised her he would, "before the mayhem starts". He means the opening of the transfer window next month. In a way, the mayhem has already started. And it will surprise nobody that McKay has a hand in a deal or two among it.

[Murray6]

Wank.

[1875]

Nasally challenged bollock that he is.

[Gunnerhibby]

Originally Posted by Greenman
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IT IS fair to assume that Willie McKay is not on Rod Petrie's Christmas card list. The Hibernian chairman is hardly alone. In the summer disgruntled Wigan fans greeted the Scottish agent with a petition and a placard reading "McKay, you thief" as he arrived at the club's training ground.

"Wigan? They should give me the freedom of the place given the profit they made on Pascal Chimbonda," observed McKay playfully. Whatever you think of his modus operandi - and plenty of people are prepared to offer opinions on that - he does have a point. And he is seldom reluctant to make it.

Paul Jewell was able to reshape his side on the £4.5 million profit his club recouped on the defender; plucked from relative obscurity in Bastia and sold on to Tottenham a year later after handing in a transfer request within minutes of the final whistle of Wigan's concluding game of last season.

It was typical McKay, utilising his sources in France and his contacts in the British game. Some would say the timing of the request was typical McKay too. Rangers turned an even bigger profit on Jean-Alain Boumsong, who arrived at Ibrox as a free transfer and was sold to Newcastle for £8m six months later. Eyebrows were raised, and so were McKay's financial fortunes.

Given Boumsong's struggles at St James' Park, it is probably no surprise that the Toon Army are about as enamoured with the Glaswegian as those at Easter Road, who believe McKay has deliberately unsettled Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson in pursuit of a quick return.

"The problem is that fans only hear one side of it," said McKay, whose journey from one-time bookmaker to major player in the world of football agency has accrued him a home in Monte Carlo and now a racehorse stable just outside Doncaster.

"Look at Hibs. According to the club, Scott and Kevin were perfectly happy until I became their agent. Well, they weren't. They are not being paid what they are worth.

I don't think Rod Petrie was delighted when they appointed me as their agent because he couldn't walk over me. He knew the club would have to play fair - and I don't think they have been."

Perhaps part of the reason that McKay provokes such strong reactions from people is his unabashed nature. To some, he personifies the worst excesses of football agency. The game has made him rich, and he is the sort of character quite happy to let it be known that he is good at his job - hence the £500,000 commission he made on the Boumsong deal.

"Agents are easy targets. They always have been and always will be. It is easy for managers to blame us at the same time as conveniently forgetting how we got hold of that centre-half they needed. I know I'm not the most popular man in the game, but that is because I'm very successful and a lot of people out there are jealous," he said matter-of-factly.

If he is being portrayed as akin to the Devil Incarnate around Leith these days, he has a thick enough hide to take it. And dish some back. "Rod Petrie is the most difficult man in the world to deal with," McKay said. "He is what I would call pennywise and pound foolish.

"It is OK to talk about not wanting to break your wage structure, but there are times you have to be clever in looking after your top assets. I don't think there is a single player in the Hibs squad who wouldn't agree that Scott Brown is worth more to the club than he is currently being paid.

"And when you look at some of the players who have left Hibs - the likes of Derek Riordan, Gary Caldwell and Ian Murray - I reckon Rod Petrie has lost the club around £4m with those deals alone."

It is one view. The other is that both Brown and club captain Thomson were happy enough to sign long-term deals back in March, under the guidance of their previous agent. If, let's say, £1,800 a week was acceptable then, how come it is suddenly akin to slave wages now a new transfer window is looming and potential suitors are stalking the pair?

McKay's take on their situation is simple enough. He says they were badly advised, and in addition, former manager Tony Mowbray had given the pair assurances that the issue of their wages would be revisited should they continue to show strong form between March and the end of the season. Both claims have been rejected by Scott Fisher, their previous agent.

The solution, as McKay sees it, is also simple enough; up their salaries to reflect their transfer market value and write something into their contracts which allows them to move on - and Hibs to recoup a suitable sum - when they naturally outgrow the club.

He says he is ready to do that sort of deal without taking a slice of the financial pie himself; and he isn't expecting Hibs to mortgage Easter Road to fund it.

"A club like Nottingham Forest would probably pay the boys £8,000 a week and they're not even a Championship side. Hibs are in the SPL and they are paying the same as the fourth division down in England. Now we're not talking about that sort of money - it is more likely to be half the market rate, but Hibs aren't playing fair by valuing the boys at £3m and then paying them what they are.

"I'm not here to represent Hibs, my job is to represent Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson and that is what I'm doing. Now, if you ask Scott Brown's parents about me, I think they'd tell you they are very happy with the job I'm doing."

While McKay offers the familiar line about both players being 100% committed to the club despite the wage wrangle, the reality is that "unhappy" players soon become "unsettled" before the seemingly inevitable lucrative relocation elsewhere.

The agent himself insists he isn't in the business of moving players on for the sake of it. He points to helping convince goalkeeper Allan McGregor to stay at Rangers and fight for his first-team place and a new contract. He is, by his measure, a fixer not a spoiler.

When Alex McLeish phoned him looking for a "leader" for his Hibs team, McKay suggested Franck Sauzee and brokered the deal. When Gordon Strachan was looking for a striker while at Southampton, it was McKay who suggested a £1.5m deal for Guingamp's front man. Chairman Rupert Lowe would only authorise a £1m transfer and the player ended up moving to Marseille.

The player in question was Didier Drogba.

While he knows there are times it suits a particular manager or chairman's purposes to criticise him, he's been around long enough to know they'll still be happy enough to call on his services when needed. It is how the wheels of this particular business are greased.

How greasy is what concerns many. When the football authorities and fraud squad in France delved into transfer dealings, McKay co-operated fully and threw open his books and his house to investigators. He says that was because he had nothing to hide. But you cannot do the sort of high-profile deals that McKay has done without attracting some degree of suspicion.

"I got a couple of phone-calls after the Panorama bungs' programme from people who said they expected me to figure in it!" he joked. "I just thought it was a soft' programme. We've now got Lord Stevens investigating deals in England. Well, in France it was a leading judge and their serious fraud squad. They looked at all my papers and found everything was above board."

This week he will take a holiday in Dubai with his wife. He'd promised her he would, "before the mayhem starts". He means the opening of the transfer window next month. In a way, the mayhem has already started. And it will surprise nobody that McKay has a hand in a deal or two among it.

A dozen paragraphs of self- gratifying pish which conveniently leaves out the most imporant factor ...


Kevin Thomson & Scott Brown signed contracts with Hibs approxamitely 6-8 months, if they were happy with them then, I'm sure the club will still be happy with them now.

Regardless of what monetary value the club put on them, or any other shower of shite from the west, considering them as potential signings, the buck stops with the team manager.

If JC does'nt want them to go(which he has stated), then they're staying put.

Good news to Hibbies

[sKipper]

Interesting stuff. Didn't know it was McKay that found Sauzee for Hibs for instance.

Reading this piece I am leaning more to his viewpoint, note he says he would "not take a financial slice himself " !!!

He is also spot on re Rod Petrie worrying about pennies and being pound foolish.

It also looks like he is only seeking up to 4k per week ( 'half going rate' ) for the players. If we could negotiate that down to say 3k I could see everyone winning.

[Alan in Dublin]

We are still to get a full season out of either player, is that not the case?

[sKipper]

Originally Posted by Gunnerhibby
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Kevin Thomson & Scott Brown signed contracts with Hibs approxamitely 6-8 months, if they were happy with them then, I'm sure the club will still be happy with them now.


If JC does'nt want them to go(which he has stated), then they're staying put.

Good news to Hibbies

McKay is still stating they were not happy with the contracts. I doubt we will ever know the truth on that one.

And I am not sure it is good news. Their form has completely nose dived in the space of 3 weeks. No good at all to the team IMO.

[O'Driscoll]

Thanks for putting the article on the forum, I now have the informed view that he is a nasty selft gratifying little sh** and that when he has taken his 2 greedy little barstewards with him in january he should be banned from ER and players be told that if he becomes thier agent he will not be recognised. The best bit for me was don't take my word for it ask Scott browns dad line, well there's an expert in the machinations of the football transfer market and players contracts. He seems to think he's good at his job, I for one have never taken the view that an agents job is to destablise the clubs, players and ultimately the game itself.

[sKipper]

Originally Posted by Alan in Dublin
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We are still to get a full season out of either player, is that not the case?

Who knows ? Technically we can get 2 and 3 full seasons from them if we hold them to their contracts. Alternatively they may go in 3 weeks when the window opens.

I suspect it will be somewhere in between.

[bigmanandy]

"The problem is that fans only hear one side of it," said McKay, whose journey from one-time bookmaker to major player in the world of football agency has accrued him a home in Monte Carlo and now a racehorse stable just outside Doncaster.

"Look at Hibs. According to the club, Scott and Kevin were perfectly happy until I became their agent. Well, they weren't. They are not being paid what they are worth.

Ive heard enough of this story to last a life time thank you very much Willie..... Now i think he is talking pish as Scott and Kevin looked like they where playing good football and not worrying about 'money' before that kant came along.

They might not be getting what they want but there getting a hell of alot more than what we get a week, if they are in the game for the money then they can GTF our club cant afford 7-10k a week!

Feck off McKay and dont come bak!!

[Greenmachine]

Originally Posted by sKipper
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Interesting stuff. Didn't know it was McKay that found Sauzee for Hibs for instance.

Reading this piece I am leaning more to his viewpoint, note he says he would "not take a financial slice himself " !!!

He is also spot on re Rod Petrie worrying about pennies and being pound foolish.

It also looks like he is only seeking up to 4k per week ( 'half going rate' ) for the players. If we could negotiate that down to say 3k I could see everyone winning.

Hibs cannot afford to pay anyone £3,ooo a week and Willie Mckay and the players have known this all along. They have been got at by someone in the know who has put them in touch with McKay based on his past record of engineering big-money moves. He has by his own admission made an awful lot of money out of other people's talent, and he stands to make more out of two of our top players. They both want to leave, it's just a question of when.

Rod Petrie is 100% correct not to have any contact with this joker. Hibs will sell both of these players when the time is right, not at the behest of an agent and the Daily Record. As contracted employees of the club, Thomson and Brown will continue to play for Hibs until John Collins and the board decide they want to sell them. The hysteria created by all the media coverage given to this guy is regrettable because it has created unrest among the fans, not the team. Hibs have made their position clear, they will be going nowhere in January.

BTW going by the comments of a lot of people on various Hibs forums and by some fans at the games, I feel as if I am in a minority in believing that Brown and Thomsons form has not nosedived, and that Hibs last two defeats have came about for the usual Hibs reasons of poor defending from the middle of the park, and a hesitant and nervous goalkeeper. Brown was struggling to make the game at Ibrox but played anyway, before eventually having to come off, and had a decent game yesterday. Kevin Thomson has had bad injuries in two of the last three games and has had to be taken off. He was poor at Ibrox, but by all accounts he was not the only one that day.

[sKipper]

" Hibs cannot afford to pay anyone £3,ooo a week "

How do you know ?

I say they can. When the current salary structure was put in place our turnover was circa 5.5m per year. We are now between 8 and 9 million per year and growing if season ticket sales and crowds are any indication of revenue growth.

In effect we are close to doubling our turnover, yet we continue on the same salary structure as in the dark old days. It should also be noted that in the last accounts the wages to income ratio was 40 odds percent, the lowest I have ever seen .

There is no question Hibs COULD pay more, obviously not as much as McKay wants but at the same time Petries stubbornness is holding us back as a club. As each day passes a European spot is getting further out of our reach and with the squad we have that is criminal !

[Greenmachine]

Originally Posted by sKipper
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" Hibs cannot afford to pay anyone £3,ooo a week "

How do you know ?

I say they can. When the current salary structure was put in place our turnover was circa 5.5m per year. We are now between 8 and 9 million per year and growing if season ticket sales and crowds are any indication of revenue growth.

In effect we are close to doubling our turnover, yet we continue on the same salary structure as in the dark old days. It should also be noted that in the last accounts the wages to income ratio was 40 odds percent, the lowest I have ever seen .

There is no question Hibs COULD pay more, obviously not as much as McKay wants but at the same time Petries stubbornness is holding us back as a club. As each day passes a European spot is getting further out of our reach and with the squad we have that is criminal !

If Hibs were to somehow agree to pay both Thomson and Brown £3,000 a week, they would still be wanting a transfer away from the club. The reason being that they know there are clubs interested in signing them who will pay them treble that amount. That is the reason they have hired Willie McKay to make sure that they get the moves they want.

The other thing to remember is that if for some reason Hibs agreed to pay them that amount of money, then there would be at least half a dozen other players agents at Petrie's door demanding the same for their clients. Agents who feel that their players contribute just as much to Hibernian as Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson do.

If anything is going to create unrest in a dressing-room it is the club starting to give big pay increases to young players who only have two or three seasons behind them, to the detriment of others.

I would agree with you that the wage levels should be reviewed for next season given the club's financial success over the last year or two, but in the case or Brown and Thomson they know the club cannot pay what their agent is demanding for them. They both want a big money move. They will get it in the summer IMO.

[Hampden_Hibby]

If I was in any way a decent player I'd have him as my agent if he's as good as he says he is in getting players good money.

[laurs]

Did McKay pay them for him to be their agent?!?!?

[Dr Shrink]

Originally Posted by laurs
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Did McKay pay them for him to be their agent?!?!?

Allegedly he did.

A wee investment.

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[Seven Tattoos]

Boxing Day Hunt?
Willie McKay's a ****
He's smug and he's smary
A bawbag who's barmy

Got frienz in the Meejah
Freemasonry Weejah
He'll make East coast strangers
Well paid at the Rangers

It is no surpise
To read all his lies
He cares not for Hibs
Just spouts massive fibs

He's off to Dubai
The sun and the sky
I have but one wish
Haw Willie, drown in yer pish!

[frankie is god]

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allegedly he paid them but to referance to the title...................thieving weegie fuckin :wa**ker: :wa**ker: :wa**ker: :wa**ker: :wa**ker: :wa**ker: :wa**ker: :wa**ker: