If agents' fees are any measure of a club's player budget and ambition, figures published by the FA for the National Leagues for the period Feb 2020 to Feb 2021 make interesting reading. Over 10 months of this period have been during the Covid pandemic. Top of the list:

Notts County £57,958
Stockport C £46,275
Solihull Moors £25,218
Dagenham & R £18,085
Hartlepool £14,403
Eastleigh £9,560
Halifax Town £8,483
Sutton United £8,178
Boreham Wood £7,515
Torquay United £5,464

So the two Counties are the clubs most obviously trying to buy promotion, and Pools are 5th in this table even after all the talk about player budget cuts. Solihull Moors seem to have done terrible transfer business considering they're currently in the bottom half of the table, and the Daggers not much better.

The money from the Yanks came too late for Wrexham - they only spent £3,080 on agents' fees up to the end of February. And Chesterfield only spent £1,483 but are in a play off place!
They are both among a bunch of clubs who really did cut right back compared with the same period in 2019-20 - the others are Yeovil, Barnet and Dover. Pools cut back on payments to agents by £10k. The £24,562 spent on agents in 2019-20 was third highest in the division, only behind Harrogate Town (£29,417) and £69,028 spent by Notts County.

Some surprisingly big spenders on agents in the NLN this year as well - AFC Fylde (£18,388), York City (£13,099) Kidderminster Harriers (£11,755) and Ebbsfleet (£7,710). No wonder they are so hacked off about the season being cancelled! Darlo pushed the boat out too, spending £2,340 on agents compared with nowt the year before.

Very interesting reading. No wonder County sacked Jim Gannon, must be absolutely desperate for promotion. I see money bags Boreham Wood have spent less than oh so poor Halifax. I hope agents are good at pitch maintenance then.

South Shields paying agents though at step 3...crazy. but I suppose you cannot fault ambition.

It's easy to see why Raj lost patience with Craig Hignett last season as well. He backed him on signings and results just weren't good enough.

and that crap team sutton spent only just over 8k, 3k less than a team in a division lower. its as much fans money that attend games as much as the owners. i,m sure most of us want our entrance fee used in a better way than lineing some flash spiv,s pockets.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Bear in mind the stats/figures can be looked at in a different way, ie club A could have spent z on agents fees for 1 player, whilst club B could have spent Y on agents fees for 10 players. It's all about context.

The number of players involved is far less material than the fact that this year Notts County have spent nearly 60 grand more on footballer's agents than some NL sides who spent nothing at all.

Agent's fees are normally 5-10% of a transfer deal outside the Prem and Championship, so that equates to a few clubs in the division spending a ton of money on transfer and signing on fees however you divvy it up. Clubs can't guarantee promotion that way, but it certainly didn't do Harrogate's chances any harm last season or Salford's 3 years ago.