Human Traffic

The story was overshadowed somewhat by the Champions League final, but after the recent furore surrounding efforts to sign Carlos Tevez, attentive Manchester United fans may have been surprised to learn from one British newspaper that the club reached an agreement last month with a Brazilian agency to give them first refusal on any number of young Brazilians who - like Tevez - are registered not by their club, but by a company.

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The company in question is already hugely influential in football, and given its line of business it has a very apt name - Traffic.

United boss Sir Alex Ferguson claimed Tevez's signing was complicated by the fact he wasn't being bought from a club, but later, when it was revealed the club were prepared to pay the player's owner Kia Joorabchian the full asking price, chief executive David Gill said just the opposite.

Most fans, surely, would rather not go through the process again, and there won't be many fans of English sides who'd like to see their club try something similar. Why's this deal been done, then? And what exactly is Traffic?

The short answer to the second question is that Traffic is a football rights agency. It's been around for over 25 years, and has offices in Săo Paulo, New York and Amsterdam. As well as owning television rights to South America's biggest football events, it also moved into player ownership and set up a youth football club called Desportivo Brasil (it also owns Miami FC in the States). It's with Desportivo Brasil that Manchester United have officially linked up.

To the first question, the answer for Traffic is that it gives the company a guaranteed client to whom it can hawk its wares. It also benefits from the English giants' expertise - a statement written by United and released on both parties' websites says: "The [United] Academy will provide technical support to improve Desportivo's preparation of young players to optimise the chances that players from their club will excel when moving to Europe."

Manchester United have signed the deal ostensibly because they're excited "to be involved with such an innovative partnership that allows each club to glean knowledge from each other and so develop the future of football". Of course, there's something of a sweetener. If you think Anderson, Rodrigo Possebon and the Da Silva twins are going to be the last Brazilian youngsters United will be signing for the foreseeable future, you can think again.

The deal was signed in November 2008 but has gained prominence after reports last month in Brazil that United had agreed a €6m fee for Corinthians' 17-year-old left back Dodô, who's never made a first team appearance but was in the Brazil team which recently won the South American Under-17 championship.

Some in Brazil reckon Dodô will be re-trained to learn a centre back role for the future. He'll travel to Manchester to train for a couple of weeks with United every few months, in between which he'll continue to train with Corinthians' kids, in an effort to help him acclimatise slowly to life in England. Traffic will get 50% of the transfer fee for that deal.

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Dodô aside, the agreement gives United first option on Desportivo Brasil's players. The academy is run by Carlos Alberto Parreira, the manager of the Brazil side which won the 1994 World Cup in the USA, and is home to around 120 teenagers. Traffic also owns the registrations of 90-odd players in the Brazilian top flight, and its name is connected with virtually every transfer rumour published in the Brazilian press.

The Desportivo Brasil deal will see United's scouting operations in Brazil become both significantly cheaper and simultaneously far wider-ranging than previously, whilst Traffic will retain a right to a percentage of any future transfer fee should a player later be sold on by United.

It's not only United who have dealings with Traffic - Liverpool goalkeeper Diego Cavalieri was acquired from the business, whilst the Merseysiders were also linked in the winter with Palmeiras striker Keirrison, though they'll have competition from the likes of Real Madrid and Milan if they're still going for him now. Traffic's entire business plan revolves around this; buying players' registrations from the clubs who've brought them up in order to profit from a later transfer to a European club.

To South Americans, this is nothing unusual. The Premier League were caught flat-footed by the issue of who held Carlos Tevez's registration back in 2007, but that was due to the lack of precedent in England. Whilst money going out of the game is undeniably a problem, the argument for the defence is that groups like Traffic and Joorabchian's former associates MSI allow South American clubs to survive by giving an injection of cash up front whilst allowing the players to stay with their current club - though in time, to aid a more lucrative transfer, they're likely to be moved to a more 'visible' team. Keirrison for instance was moved from Coritiba (who retain a stake in his registration) to Palmeiras (who don't) in December.

There's no question of any FIFA rules being broken, though. Desportivo Brasil are a real club, sending sides to youth tournaments around the world - United's deal is specifically with the club rather than with Traffic as the holding company, and Traffic's interest is purely economic. It never tried to exert a 'third party influence' over players.

English football might only just be starting to come to terms with an ownership structure Latin America has been familiar with for some time now, but it's here to stay and, with the current economic climate surrounding the British pound and debts in the Premier League, who's to say it won't one day creep into the English game?

Manchester United youth players one day being sent to economically more powerful clubs in South America or Asia? Well, maybe not. But in one direction at least, transatlantic Traffic is here to stay.