Revealed – How much Sheffield Wednesday paid agents in 2020/21 and how it compares...

The FA released the latest set of fees paid out to intermediaries this week, revealing that the Owls forked out £722,988 between February 2020 and February 2021, compared to the £1,356,630 they spent between February 2019 and January 2020.

Those numbers should come as no surprise given the change in approach from Wednesday over the past couple of years, with the club opting to cut their spending when it comes to transfer fees in search of more pragmatic cost-effective deals.

It is the first time that the FA’s records have showed that Wednesday have paid out less than £1m since 2015/16 when it was just £264,988, with 2017/18 the most expensive year as it hit £1,714,130 after back-to-back Play-Off pushes.

The days of spending millions on players seem to be long gone at Wednesday after Dejphon Chansiri and his recruitment team started to look more at the likes of Dominic Iorfa, Josh Windass (who were signed for less than £1m) as well as the free agent market.

It remains to be seen if that will still be the case after the sale of Hillsborough meant that they recorded a profit in the latest accounts that were released, and the fact that so many players are out of contract in July suggests that there will be a lot of new players signed in the summer – regardless of which league they end up in.

Wednesday were 16th in the Championship with regards to money spent paid to intermediaries (Norwich City spent the most - £6,827,037) and were nowhere near their city rivals, Sheffield United, who forked out over E7m in the same period.

The top amounts in the Championship were as follows:

Norwich City - £6,827,037

Bournemouth - £5,653,160

Stoke City - 3,082,295

Reading - £2,688,492

Brentford - £2,537,207

In total, Championship teams paid out almost £41m compared to £272m in the Premier League, £3m in League One and £1m in League Two.

The National League spent £271,838 on paying intermediaries.