Fabio Borini might only be 26, but has already turned out for Chelsea, Roma, Liverpool and will soon pull on the famous shirt of AC Milan, with the Italian giants expected to complete a deal for the forward in the coming days. That is a C.V. that would distinguish the greatest of talents. Borini, however, is not the greatest of talents.
In fact, the Italian has just come off the back of the worst season of his professional career. Borini found the net just twice in 26 appearances as Sunderland suffered relegation from the Premier League, finishing in bottom place as one of the most dysfunctional sides to ever play in the English top flight.
Sunderland will be the seventh club at which he has failed to break the double figure mark in goals, scoring just seven times in 50 outings for the Black Cats. At Liverpool before that, he managed just two goals, notching an accumulative tally of just 15 goals in spells that spanned Roma, Parma, Swansea City and Chelsea.
By almost every measure, Borini has failed to live up to the billing he created for himself as a teenager, yet by signing for AC Milan he appears to have fallen upwards. Rather than being any consequence for his dismal performances over the past few years, the Italian will in fact arrive at one of the biggest, most prestigious clubs, in the world.
This is why football fans harbour a certain scorn for agents. Without one, Borini would surely be a Championship player by now, suffering relegation with Sunderland and staying there. Without one, he wouldn’t be set to sign a £35,000 a week contract with AC Milan. Borini has become the embodiment of an industry that sells football clubs what they don’t need.
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All this comes in the midst of the Gianluigi Donnarumma controversy which threatens to engulf all of Serie A. Going on the general consensus, that whole situation has been prompted by the teenage goalkeeper’s agent Mino Raiola. He is the most notorious agent in the game and is credited with some of the sourest transfer tales of the past generation.
Sir Alex Ferguson famously fell out with Raiola over his role in persuading Paul Pogba to leave Manchester United all those years ago, with the former pizza chef also throwing a chair across a room in the negotiations for the transfer of Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Borussia Dortmund last summer. Whether it’s in Italy, England or Germany, Raiola comes with a reputation.
As do most agents. It was once the job description of the football agent to look after one’s client, but now it’s more fitting that they can described as salesmen, stopping at nothing to push a sale. Some players are easier to sell than others, and there’s something about Borini that makes him pliable to agents.
Of course, there are some agents who act in the best interest of both their client and the club in question. There are plenty in the game who do the industry justice, conducting themselves in the appropriate manner to achieve the best possible result for all involved. As is frequently the case with many things, though, a few toxic characters taint the reputation of the rest.
Clubs should be smarter than to fall for this. AC Milan, in this particular case, should know better than to hand a contract to a player who has scored just over 30 goals over the course of his entire eight-year career. The transfer market might be a buyer’s market, but that doesn’t mean everything being sold should be bought.
