His club, Santos, had been demanding a $50m (£28.5m) penalty to release the player, who has a contract with them until 2008. Lord Mawhinney said "too much money" was leaving the game through payments to agents.Championship payments to agents: Brighton (44 transactions, £45,595 paid); Burnley (35, £211,000); Cardiff (32, £157,500); Coventry (54, £75,000); Crewe (34, £0); Derby (37, £270,500); Gillingham (21, £32,000); Ipswich (35, £155,000); Leeds (69, £1,896,688); Leicester (51, £611,325); Millwall (34, £140,000); Nottingham (42, £282,000); Plymouth (33, £153,000); Preston (38, £296,500); QPR (57, £320,935); Reading (27, £271,450); Rotherham (20, £47,166); Sheffield United (44, £315,000); Stoke (34, £295,000); Sunderland (25, £329,860); Watford (37, £9,500); West Ham (34, £277,319); Wigan (18, £210,000); Wolverhampton (33, £432,625).Division total: 888, £6,834,963.. League One clubs paid a total of £595,870 with Hull City the biggest payers of £97,000 to agents League Two clubs paid total of £325,020. But Championship clubs' payments totalled more than £6.8m, with 17 clubs other than Leeds paying six-figure sums. I have written to the FA and made it clear that our clubs want regulation."Only Crewe Alexandra, whose manager Dario Gradi takes a special interest in transfer activity, did not pay a licensed agent in the past 12 months. "The introduction of this much-needed framework is currently being hindered by a lack of consensus on the issue across English football as a whole," he said."That is because a number of Premier League clubs don't want to have the sort of regulation the FA has in draft form We do, they don't.

Leicester City, whose total of £611,325 was the second-highest, are also understood to have paid out the most to get rid of players on big contracts regarded as unsustainable outside the Premiership.Lord Mawhinney described the issue of agents as a "serious niggle" in football and called upon the Football Association to take action to police the industry. That represents almost a third of the money earned by the Football League in its annual £25m television deal, and Lord Mawhinney admitted that there was a "lot of strong feeling, a lot of unified feeling amongst the clubs that a regulatory framework is required". Of the 72 clubs, Leeds United were the single biggest payers with a bill of £1.89m, the largest portion of which is understood to have involved the move of Mark Viduka to Middlesbrough. The biggest payments to agents by Football League clubs in the past year were sanctioned to get rid of players, it emerged yesterday, after the chairman Lord Mawhinney called for regulations to control a business that cost his members £7.8m over 12 months. The Frenchman, who would be free to leave next summer on a Bosman, has expressed his frustration that the club have only offered him a one-year contract extension.He is looking for a two-year deal to secure his future through to 2008 and there has been speculation that he might now get it in the wake of Vieira's move to Juventus..

It is either yes or no and in this case it is no."Robert Pires, meanwhile, has been told not to expect an improved contract offer now that Vieira has left. Under Spanish Football Federation rules La Liga clubs are permitted only three non-EU players on their books.Arsenal have ruled out a move for Real Madrid midfielder Guti Wenger said, "I am not looking at Guti at all I cannot say any more about it. The Seville president Jose Maria del Nido said last week that he had turned down an offer of €20m (£13.8m) from Arsenal for the Brazil international who has scored 38 goals in the last two seasons and is under contract until 2008.The fact that Seville have an excess of non-European Union players in the squad at present could also force them to sell one of their foreign players. We all want him to stay at the club, but we all know what situation he is in and we are going to have to wait and see what happens."There is a very strong chance that he will stay. He appears to want to stay and the club wants the same, and unless there is a sky-high offer for him he will continue playing for us."Baptista appeared to rule out a move when he returned to the club earlier this week saying he wanted to acquire Spanish citizenship. Now, given Roma's fragile financial state, Dacourt could be allowed to go for free.In Spain, the Seville coach Juande Ramos said he wants the future of Brazilian forward Julio Baptista to be resolved as soon as possible so that he can get on with planning for next season."Baptista is a pivotal player for Sevilla," he said "Every coach wants to have the best footballers in his side.