Read the agreement before it is signed
Scope, exclusivity, term, renewal, commission base and exit, assessed for the person signing rather than the person offering.
Sport
Agents and representation.
Representation goes wrong more often than the deals it produces. Somebody signs early, at the point where they had the least bargaining power, the arrangement is never revisited, and by the time it is worth something there is an argument about commission, exclusivity and how it can be ended. Representation in regulated sports also sits under governing body rules, and those rules change.
What this looks like when it goes wrong
The agreement was signed at the wrong moment. An athlete with no leverage, sometimes very young and usually advised by nobody independent, signs terms drafted entirely by the other side. Exclusive across every kind of income, worldwide, renewing unless something is done to stop it. None of it looks unreasonable until there is money in it.
Commission is the second. The argument is rarely about the rate and almost always about what the rate is applied to. Playing income, commercial income, bonuses, image payments, sums payable on signing, and above all deals concluded during the term but paid out long after it ends. Trailing commission on income arriving well after the relationship finished is the most common fight in this area.
The third is overlap. An athlete has one person for playing matters, another for commercial work, a family member involved in everything, and somebody new who has been in touch. Two people then claim the same commission on the same deal, each with a plausible account of having introduced it, and the athlete is caught between them and at risk of paying twice.
The fourth is the ending. These relationships tend to end in a phone call rather than in a notice. What follows is a question about whether the contract allowed it, what notice was required, what happens to everything in the pipeline, and whether the athlete can be stopped from working with anybody else while it is unresolved.
What actually decides it
What was signed, and whether it stands up as written. A representation agreement is a commercial contract, and the ordinary questions apply: was it properly entered into, was the person signing in a position to understand what they were signing, and was anything given in return for what was promised. Agreements signed by very young athletes, or with no independent input at all, do not always survive scrutiny in the shape they were drafted.
How far it ties the athlete up. An arrangement that is exclusive, wide in scope and long in practice can be attacked as an unreasonable restraint on somebody's ability to earn a living. Whether that argument works depends on the length, the breadth, what the representative actually committed to do, and what the athlete received in return. It is fact specific and it is not a general escape route.
Governing body rules. Representation in regulated sports sits under the rules of the relevant governing body, and those rules change, sometimes substantially. They can affect who is permitted to act, how an arrangement must be documented and recorded, how and by whom a representative may be paid, and where a dispute is heard. What the rules require at any given moment is something to check at the time rather than to assume, and an arrangement that was compliant when it was signed will not necessarily sit comfortably with what applies later.
Records, and where the argument is heard. Where two representatives claim the same deal, the answer is in correspondence, timing and who was actually in the room, not in who states it more firmly. And many arrangements route disputes to a governing body process or to arbitration rather than to the courts, which affects what can be recovered, how quickly, and how much of it stays private.
What we do
Work out what is actually owed
Income reconstructed against the commission base, so the argument is about a position both sides can see.
Handle an exit
A representation arrangement ended so that notice, the pipeline and the aftermath are dealt with at the same time.
Resolve competing claims
Two representatives claiming the same commission, sorted out on the records rather than on assertion.
Structure a new arrangement
Representation set up so that scope, renewal and termination are clear while the relationship is still a good one.
Governing body and regulated processes
Where a matter belongs in a governing body process or requires regulated conduct, it is run with regulated partners.
When to spend nothing
A modest trailing commission on a deal that finished long ago is rarely worth pursuing. The recovery is small, the process is slow, and raising it usually costs more in relationships inside a small industry than it returns. The same is true of an arrangement that has quietly lapsed with both sides having moved on, where formalising the ending can revive a claim nobody was actually making.
Where the real objective is to leave rather than to litigate, a negotiated release is generally quicker and cheaper than proving the agreement was unenforceable. The argument that the terms were too wide is available in some cases, but it takes time, it turns on the facts, and the athlete needs to be working while it runs.
Before anything is sent
Positions harden the moment the other side takes advice, and the quiet routes stop being available once a demand has gone out. While nothing has been sent, everything is still open.