Paul Dalglish filled an eclectic mix of roles across 17 years working in North America.
A two-time MLS Cup winner with Houston Dynamo as a player, his coaching career took him from Tampa to Austin, Salt Lake City, Ottawa and Miami.
There were stints as head coach, technical director, general manager and club president. Now, having relocated to the UK with his family, the son of Liverpool legend Sir Kenny Dalglish has started a new chapter as a football agent.
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A catch-up with old school friend Ben Mawson, the co-founder of global music management company TaP Music, led to the launch of TaP23.
“I was at a crossroads when Ben came to me,” says Dalglish, who had been considering his options after parting company with Miami FC in November 2021.
“When you work in America, there’s no relegation or promotion. The only way you stay somewhere is if you’re average. If you do well, you get a better club. If you don’t do well, you get fired. America is so big and the clubs are so spread out. It can be very disruptive in terms of uprooting the family. The only time I really got to spend with the kids when I wasn’t working and they weren’t in school was two weeks at Christmas.
“It was a conversation with my wife who said this opportunity is going to be much better for family life, being in control of my own schedule, and from speaking to Ben, I was really sold on the project. I believe this is what football needs.”
The client base of TaP23 — where Dalglish works alongside agent Grant Smith and Pat Devlin — includes Celtic defender Liam Scales, Everton’s Nathan Patterson, forward Dapo Afolayan, who helped St Pauli win promotion to the Bundesliga last season, and highly-rated Manchester United youngster Charlie McNeil.
“The key is having the opportunity to showcase what we offer,” Dalglish said. “You could be the best agency in the world, but if you can’t get in front of players to sell yourself, then it becomes a challenge. The fact a player can only ever sign up for two years leads to a ring of steel around clients. Agents are constantly worried about losing clients.
“We’re different because you don’t have one agent with us. The future of football is you have a management team because the needs of a footballer have become so diverse and detailed that you need a team of experts to navigate that world.”
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Mawson, who went to Merchant Taylors’ School near Liverpool with Dalglish in the 1980s, is a barrister turned music manager. He helped launch Dua Lipa’s career and currently represents Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding and Dermot Kennedy among others. TaP Music have offices in Los Angeles, New York, Sydney and London.
“One of the things that’s mostly done better in music is the approach to commercial in terms of brands,” says Mawson. “It’s important to do things that don’t affect the credibility of the day job. If a musician does too many brand deals, then it undermines their credibility. For footballers, even more so. I see too many examples of short-term cash grabs in terms of commercial deals and one-off social media posts. Why are you doing that? Football has to be the focus.
“When I think of the word ‘agent’, it’s about someone taking a percentage, it’s a transactional thing. Management is about taking a much more holistic view of everything. If you’re going to take money off a footballer, you have to add proportionate value. You can only do that if you provide complete support across all aspects of the journey — from content creation to PR, mental health support, concierge services, philanthropy and wealth management.”
Another valuable resource for TaP23 is Sir Kenny Dalglish, who has joined as an ambassador and founder client. The Anfield icon will also help his son, who has the UEFA Pro Licence, with video analysis to help their clients improve on the field.
“My dad has never had an agent before in his life. Previously, he just worked with an accountant,” Paul explains. “He loves taking an interest in young players and their development. Having him at meetings with parents has already been integral in terms of people signing up with us.”
Paul certainly has a wealth of experience to draw on. After leaving Liverpool without making a senior appearance, he made the breakthrough at Newcastle United in 1998 and scored in the Premier League before falling out of favour and dropping down the football pyramid. A nomadic playing career ended on a high with back-to-back MLS Cup triumphs with Houston Dynamo.
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“When I was 21 at Newcastle, (then Scotland manager) Craig Brown said: ‘I don’t want to put too much pressure on his shoulders but he could be Scotland’s answer to Michael Owen’. Not long after, Ruud Gullit (then Newcastle boss) told me he was never going to play me.
“I started blaming everyone else. It destroyed me. It felt like someone had taken my dream away. You start going down and down. I retired at, like, 25 but then got back into it under Paul Lambert at Livingston. I ended up getting a move to Hibernian and then went to America.
“I was Kenny Dalglish’s son playing in the Premier League and the pressure that comes with that. I remember scoring three goals in a youth game once and coming off and hearing, ‘Brilliant today, Paul, but you’ll never be as good as your dad’. Whatever I did, I was still a failure because my level of expectation was to be as good as my dad. That was the hardest part. You have so many insecurities as a young boy becoming a man.
“As a manager, it was different for me. I won championships and coach of the year. I actually preferred the management side because I didn’t feel like having the name Dalglish mattered as much. People can’t say: ‘Your team only won because your dad is Kenny Dalglish!’. I experienced the highs and the lows. Going through that journey is one of the big reasons why I want to work with players.”
Paul, his wife Brandi and their teenage twins, Coco and Rocco, initially relocated to Houston, Texas, after he left Miami FC. But Formby, the town north of Liverpool where Jurgen Klopp lived, is now home.
The past 18 months have been spent putting TaP23 together. Dalglish and Mawson are entering a cut-throat industry at a time when FIFA are in the process of introducing new agent regulations to improve the standard of representation and increase transparency. Agencies are awaiting the verdict from the European Court of Justice following injunctions against implementing some of the rules, such as a cap on transfer commissions.
Mawson says: “There’s been a lot of resistance to them from agents, but we’re supportive. While we don’t agree with the proposal to reduce commission, we do believe with the amount of money in football and the extent to which players are now public figures that properly qualified and regulated agents are a necessity. It’s a positive that you now have to pass an exam to represent a player and speak to a club.
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“We’re obviously now competing with other agencies, but I don’t see it as adversarial. We’re trying to do things very much in our own way. We are not going to be in the mix for hundreds of players, it’s about being selective. If you get too big then the service becomes diluted.
“Football representation still has one foot in the past. We’re trying to do things differently with the experience and skill set of the staff we’ve assembled.
“The exciting thing for me about joining forces with Paul is that his background is in developing and helping players as a coach. Everything that goes towards getting a good contract comes with how you perform. Through that, your profile rises and other stuff comes.”
