EXCLUSIVE: Licensed Football Agent & FAI Employee: A conflict of interests or regulations?

Latest press release may spark such questions for FIFA and the FAI

An eye for detail is a wonderful thing. It can spot crossovers, it can prompt debates, it can inspire questions like this one - can a senior member of a national football association’s staff hold a FIFA player’s agent licence?

This is the question that came to this mind on Thursday, albeit with the help of a couple of contacts within the fledgling Irish football industry who also spotted a familiar pattern between a new press release and a slightly older one.

Let’s start with the older edition. On February 26th 2025, the FAI announced the appointment of Christina Kenny as their new Chief Operating Officer and outlined, as these things do, her many achievements on an impressive CV.

The release noted that Christina had been an Independent Committee Member at the FAI for a number of years, adding that: “Christina has a deep understanding of the organisation and the commitment to the growth of football in Ireland. She is also a FIFA licensed agent so has a wider understanding of the landscape.”

Another press release announcing a Christina Kenny appointment was dispatched on Thursday morning as the Federation of Irish Sport welcomed her to their Board.

Again, Christina’s vast experience in the world of sport was highlighted, including the following: “A strong advocate for inclusion, participation, and sustainable sporting infrastructure, Christina holds an MBA and a FIFA agent’s licence, bringing extensive commercial, operational, and governance expertise to Irish sport.”

That’s twice recently the world of press releases has celebrated Christina Kenny as a FIFA licensed agent, in February of 2025 and in May of 2026. Fair play you might think, that experience is bound to be of benefit to Irish football and Irish sport.

But what, you might also have to ask, would FIFA make of all this, how would FIFA feel about the Chief Operating Officer of one of their member associations holding a FIFA agent’s licence?

Perhaps someone will ask FIFA and the FAI that question in the coming days but for now, let’s concentrate on what the FIFA Football Agent Regulations handbook has to say about it, even if Christina’s LinkedIn profile suggests, rogue full stop aside, that she is a ‘Licensed FIFA football agent. (Not active)’.

Said FIFA Football Agent Regulations handbook, available via digitalhub.fifa.com, is a 39 page document and is the bible for all those applying for a FIFA agent’s licence and, most importantly, for those who have successfully been awarded one.

On page 12 of the FIFA handbook it clearly states: “To become a FIFA agent an applicant must, upon submitting their licence application (and subsequently thereafter, including after being granted a licence) not be an official or employee of FIFA, a confederation, a member association, a league, a club, a body that represents the interests of clubs or leagues or any organisation connected directly or indirectly with such organisations and entities; the only exception is where an applicant has been appointed or elected to a body of FIFA, a confederation or a member association, representing the interests of Football Agents.”

It would appear from those regulations that you either hold a FIFA Agent’s Licence or you work for a member association. It would also appear that you can’t do both, even if you state publicly that the licenced football agent is ‘not active’ as per LinkedIn.

All this will make for some interesting questions to the FAI. Who will ask them?