Evening Standard: Profile - Tony Stephens, agent to David Beckham
By David Rowan
HE is the power-agent behind David Beckham's deal with Real Madrid and has made millions shaping the careers of other top players including Michael Owen and Alan Shearer. Yet you will never have seen him interviewed, his stock press photo is two decades old, and only a handful of trusted sports writers have their calls returned. In an industry full of wide boys, how has Tony Stephens remained such a shadowy figure?
As the deal-maker responsible for "all football and commercial aspects" of Beckham's life, Stephens has been the key player in the labyrinthine negotiations over Beckham's move. Alex Ferguson, Manchester United's manager, fell out spectacularly with the England captain last February, blood having spilled on the changing-room floor. Both club and player began to consider the possibility of a parting of the ways.
United talked about offering Beckham a new contract, but also liked the idea of cashing in on their greatest asset. Neither side wanted to be seen as the instigator of the split. Stephens had begun secret discussions with Madrid back in April, yet his judicious spinning has conveyed the impression - rightly or wrongly - that it was United and the intemperate Ferguson who forced Beckham out.
What, though, of the man himself ? As marketing director of the SFX Sports agency, Stephens is Beckham's day-today contact point, working with up to 15 rights negotiators, marketing executives and lawyers to control everything from his Brylcreem endorsements to his Marks & Spencer clothes.
As a licensed agent, Stephens represents everything that Ferguson detests - one of the egotistical "rats" determined to overprice the talent. Yet from his office in Hockley Heath, Solihull, he keeps a determinedly low profile.
All SFX will say about him personally is that he is 55, and married with two adult daughters. Those who have negotiated with him say he is "shrewd", " meticulous to the point of obsession" and "secretive". Determined to master every detail of a contract, and "phenomenally controlling", he is known as ruthless. Rival agent Mel Stein was said to be furious when, off work with illness, he learned that his client Alan Shearer had acceded to an offer for Stephens to represent him.
Yet in a world notorious for bungs, Stephens has a reputation for straight dealing and honesty. Even his rivals respect him. "Good luck to him," says Phil Smith of First Artist. "He keeps himself to himself and lets his players do the talking. If you want a small but high-profile client base, that's the way to do it."
It was Beckham's father Ted who put him in touch with Stephens seven years ago. But the relationship may have been the result of an accident: the agent Eric Hall also claims to have received a call from Ted, but he lost his number and never called back. Beckham signed to Stephens in a meeting at Manchester airport in August 1996. Stephens drove to Alex Ferguson's house to break the news, but the encounter was acrimonious, according to Ferguson's biographer, Michael Crick.
"Ferguson went mental, he was raging," a source told Crick. "He started effing and blinding and chased him down the drive ... 'How dare you come to my f***ing house? Get the f*** out of here.'" The next day, Ferguson called Beckham into his office and, according to accounts, told him to ask his new agent to arrange a transfer. Beckham replied: "Okay, going then." Stephens has been a local radio commentator, a computer salesman and commercial manager of Aston Villa, but it was while marketing director of Wembley Stadium, from 1986, that he became an agent. Tony Stephens Associates initially represented David Platt in sponsorship deals. Shearer, Dwight Yorke, Beckham and Michael Owen followed.
Another agent, Jon Holmes, whose firm had been bought out by the huge Marquee Group (in turn taken over by SFX), persuaded Stephens to sell too, for a reported $3.5 million.
"His was the one business I wanted to buy," says Holmes, now MD of SFX Sports. "Together we're at the top of our field - which to a major degree is down to his energy and talent, in both senses of the word. To be a successful agent, you need to be a father confessor on occasions, able to empathise with players when necessary, but also able to dispense tough advice they don't want to hear." An ability to handle the media also matters.
MICHAEL Crick's researcher, Alex Millar, was called by Stephens, who had seen a draft of the encounter on Ferguson's drive. "He got very interested, and insisted that Fergie had taken him in for a cup of tea and a chat," Millar says. The denial is in the book, The Boss, although other sources contradict it. Could the agent have been trying to smooth relations for commercial reasons? Stephens is rarely seen on the social circuit. His most public intervention in the past three decades was the publication of The Sunday Footballer, a book about his Sunday league hobby. "He'll keep his head down doing the work - I'll do all the tap-dancing," Holmes explains.
Yet Stephens was not always so quiet. A colleague who worked with him in the Midlands in the 1970s recalls "an amazing self-promoter" who carefully controlled his own image - insisting on being dropped off at the end of his road rather than at his front door. He made a name for himself as a small-time compere, touring workingmen's clubs with sports stars such as Steve Davis to promote Courage beer - claiming to be "twice as funny as David Coleman at a quarter of the price".
"He would certainly get what he wanted," the colleague recalls. "So when he didn't get into the Sandwell team for an It's a Knockout tournament in Belgrade, he hooked up with them anyway and gave himself a PR role, pushing himself right to the front." He would also talk up his relationships with the successful. "He'd talk about something Bryan Robson had said to him, and you'd later find out that this was at a dinner for 200 other people." With a few million in the bank, he no longer needs to promote himself. He even plans a sabbatical this autumn - but don't expect a press conference to announce it.
(Evening Standard, June 25 2003)
HE is the power-agent behind David Beckham's deal with Real Madrid and has made millions shaping the careers of other top players including Michael Owen and Alan Shearer. Yet you will never have seen him interviewed, his stock press photo is two decades old, and only a handful of trusted sports writers have their calls returned. In an industry full of wide boys, how has Tony Stephens remained such a shadowy figure?
As the deal-maker responsible for "all football and commercial aspects" of Beckham's life, Stephens has been the key player in the labyrinthine negotiations over Beckham's move. Alex Ferguson, Manchester United's manager, fell out spectacularly with the England captain last February, blood having spilled on the changing-room floor. Both club and player began to consider the possibility of a parting of the ways.
United talked about offering Beckham a new contract, but also liked the idea of cashing in on their greatest asset. Neither side wanted to be seen as the instigator of the split. Stephens had begun secret discussions with Madrid back in April, yet his judicious spinning has conveyed the impression - rightly or wrongly - that it was United and the intemperate Ferguson who forced Beckham out.
What, though, of the man himself ? As marketing director of the SFX Sports agency, Stephens is Beckham's day-today contact point, working with up to 15 rights negotiators, marketing executives and lawyers to control everything from his Brylcreem endorsements to his Marks & Spencer clothes.
As a licensed agent, Stephens represents everything that Ferguson detests - one of the egotistical "rats" determined to overprice the talent. Yet from his office in Hockley Heath, Solihull, he keeps a determinedly low profile.
All SFX will say about him personally is that he is 55, and married with two adult daughters. Those who have negotiated with him say he is "shrewd", " meticulous to the point of obsession" and "secretive". Determined to master every detail of a contract, and "phenomenally controlling", he is known as ruthless. Rival agent Mel Stein was said to be furious when, off work with illness, he learned that his client Alan Shearer had acceded to an offer for Stephens to represent him.
Yet in a world notorious for bungs, Stephens has a reputation for straight dealing and honesty. Even his rivals respect him. "Good luck to him," says Phil Smith of First Artist. "He keeps himself to himself and lets his players do the talking. If you want a small but high-profile client base, that's the way to do it."
It was Beckham's father Ted who put him in touch with Stephens seven years ago. But the relationship may have been the result of an accident: the agent Eric Hall also claims to have received a call from Ted, but he lost his number and never called back. Beckham signed to Stephens in a meeting at Manchester airport in August 1996. Stephens drove to Alex Ferguson's house to break the news, but the encounter was acrimonious, according to Ferguson's biographer, Michael Crick.
"Ferguson went mental, he was raging," a source told Crick. "He started effing and blinding and chased him down the drive ... 'How dare you come to my f***ing house? Get the f*** out of here.'" The next day, Ferguson called Beckham into his office and, according to accounts, told him to ask his new agent to arrange a transfer. Beckham replied: "Okay, going then." Stephens has been a local radio commentator, a computer salesman and commercial manager of Aston Villa, but it was while marketing director of Wembley Stadium, from 1986, that he became an agent. Tony Stephens Associates initially represented David Platt in sponsorship deals. Shearer, Dwight Yorke, Beckham and Michael Owen followed.
Another agent, Jon Holmes, whose firm had been bought out by the huge Marquee Group (in turn taken over by SFX), persuaded Stephens to sell too, for a reported $3.5 million.
"His was the one business I wanted to buy," says Holmes, now MD of SFX Sports. "Together we're at the top of our field - which to a major degree is down to his energy and talent, in both senses of the word. To be a successful agent, you need to be a father confessor on occasions, able to empathise with players when necessary, but also able to dispense tough advice they don't want to hear." An ability to handle the media also matters.
MICHAEL Crick's researcher, Alex Millar, was called by Stephens, who had seen a draft of the encounter on Ferguson's drive. "He got very interested, and insisted that Fergie had taken him in for a cup of tea and a chat," Millar says. The denial is in the book, The Boss, although other sources contradict it. Could the agent have been trying to smooth relations for commercial reasons? Stephens is rarely seen on the social circuit. His most public intervention in the past three decades was the publication of The Sunday Footballer, a book about his Sunday league hobby. "He'll keep his head down doing the work - I'll do all the tap-dancing," Holmes explains.
Yet Stephens was not always so quiet. A colleague who worked with him in the Midlands in the 1970s recalls "an amazing self-promoter" who carefully controlled his own image - insisting on being dropped off at the end of his road rather than at his front door. He made a name for himself as a small-time compere, touring workingmen's clubs with sports stars such as Steve Davis to promote Courage beer - claiming to be "twice as funny as David Coleman at a quarter of the price".
"He would certainly get what he wanted," the colleague recalls. "So when he didn't get into the Sandwell team for an It's a Knockout tournament in Belgrade, he hooked up with them anyway and gave himself a PR role, pushing himself right to the front." He would also talk up his relationships with the successful. "He'd talk about something Bryan Robson had said to him, and you'd later find out that this was at a dinner for 200 other people." With a few million in the bank, he no longer needs to promote himself. He even plans a sabbatical this autumn - but don't expect a press conference to announce it.
(Evening Standard, June 25 2003)
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