There are footballing rows, and then there are the ones that go nuclear in the ⚽ ︱soccerverse-fa channel on a Thursday morning. This one had a body, a motive and a getaway car. The body was a Brazilian winger. The getaway car was a transfer between two clubs owned by the same fella.

On June 25, agent Herzog walked into the FA channel and laid out nine months of grievance. He owns the full one million Influence in Jandir Souza Silva — a 27-year-old Brazilian wide man rated 71 and valued at roughly 546K SVC — which makes him, in every meaningful sense, the player's agent. For three-quarters of a year he says he tried to do business with the manager holding the player at Japanese side Sagan Tosu (in-game: Tosu). Ten attempts, by his count. Every one ignored or blocked.

So Herzog did the patient thing. He let the contract run down, planning to land the player at the season turn. Then, the day before he spoke up, the player simply… moved. The ledger backs him to the letter: on June 24 at 19:53 UTC, Jandir Souza Silva transferred from Tosu to Toyota for 4,371,594 SVC — and both clubs answer to the same man. Redier is the top influence holder at both, the named proposed manager at Toyota, and he doesn't deny running either. An internal shuffle, agent locked out, player gone.

Do we really want to play like this? So unfair and dirty?

It is morally wrong and it feels like theft.

Enter the villain, and he's not even sorry

If you were waiting for contrition, pull up a chair. Redier strolled in, lit a cigar and delivered the most gloriously unbothered reply the FA channel has seen in weeks.

I stopped reading the game messages a long time ago. I got bored with so much backstory about the players. I've been managing those teams since the beginning, including that player. My recommendation: don't buy influence from players who are on my teams 🙂 And I will continue not reading the messages from the game.

Pressed by the agents that he'd moved someone else's player without a word of consent, he doubled down into a full manifesto.

I have a lot of teams, and I'm not going to waste time negotiating with every single agent. That would be crazy. I want my teams to win and be competitive; as agents, all you care about is SVCs. But don't worry, I'm sure we'll qualify for the Champions League. I play solo because I can. You can play however you want.

Cheeky note from your correspondent: both Tosu and Toyota are currently 15th and 14th in JPN Division 1. The Champions League may have to wait.

The pile-on

The agents did not take it lying down. cloudsv_ — who, for the record, tagged Redier as "a friend of the lovely Batman" and warned Herzog he'd "expect the same treatment" — cut to the bone:

he is not asking you if you read or not. he's saying you moved a player of his agency without his consent.

I guess respecting other players is not an option for you.

tabard6 turned it into a manifesto of his own, arguing the whole "solo" idea is a fiction in a multiplayer game.

no one should be allowed to play this game 'solo'. This is a community game where interaction between users is not only useful but an important part of the game.

They complain or ignore and then hold the player hostage in another of their clubs. But then apparently agents are the bad guys.

Then joachim_95952 produced the line of the day — equal parts threat and prophecy:

I hope the next time he ignores an agent he takes into account that somewhere in season 4 the agents will have the ability to chose where a player ends up and he might get ignored to on requests he makes.

Even the meme merchants got involved, username_hamburgler offering Herzog the simplest fix in football: "you can always buy his team 😈".

But — and credit where due — it isn't one-sided

This is where the FA channel earns its name. Cipi | El Rincón del DT, no stranger to a transfer row himself, refused to make Redier a pantomime villain and asked the awkward question nobody on the agent side wanted:

Why an agent have more rights to get the player for his club then a manager who own shares of club?

His real point, though, was a plea to separate the rulebook from manners: "The people are mixing game and what is allowed in the game with the lack of respect." sorareportugal widened the lens, reminding everyone that agents pull the exact same stunt in reverse — blocking a renewal to dump a rising player onto the free bench — so "any rule applied here need to check both situation."

Herzog's reply to the whole "play how you like" school of thought was the cleanest mission statement of the morning:

Soccerverse is a multiplayer game with different roles, a community. If you want, go play the old Football Manager on Atari, then you will be on your own.

The cavalry is coming — at Season 4

Here's the kicker that should make every solo merchant sweat. The dev side, via tyki, confirmed the rules are about to flip on their head. Agents are getting the final say.

Will be during S4. Backend work is finished already.

A "morale checker" goes live at the start of Season 4 to police exactly this sort of move. With Season 3 winding down, that's weeks, not months. The men playing solo are about to find the AI was never the only opponent in the room — and the agents are keeping a list.

For now, Jandir Souza Silva sits in a Toyota shirt, his agent fuming, the FA channel still smouldering, and a brand-new rule book being written in real time. Redier, naturally, won't read the message telling him so.