Seldon Gets Angels Backing

www.kentishfootball.co.uk has been advised to publish this article, having printed inaccuracies in the previous article, which was published on Friday, 30^th March 2007.

www.kentishfootball.co.uk and it's editor Stephen McCartney regrets any harm caused by the inaccuracies reported in it’s previous article and offers its apologies to Mr Seldon and Mr Beck.

The offending article has already been removed from this website, and has been replaced by the one below:

TONBRIDGE Angels chairman Nick Sullivan has apologised for remarks he made after hot-shot Jon Main signed up with top Danish agent Mikkel Beck.

Sullivan claimed that Matt Seldon, who works with Beck, had never played football and implied that he was not competent to help represent and manage Jon Main.

His comments were reported in the Courier on March 30 - and www.kentishfootball.co.uk.

Sullivan has now told Seldon’s lawyers that he apologised for what was said and that it had not been his intention when speaking to the Courier to imply that Matt was incompetent or had never played football. He said that Seldon was welcome at Angels and that he hoped that Seldon would continue to enjoy good relations with the Club in the future.

Seldon is, in fact, far from inexperienced on the pitch. He attended the Charlton youth academy and Brighton & Hove Albion centre of excellence and later won a soccer scholarship to Drexel University in America. He then played for Crawley Town and made a goal scoring senior debut for the club before deciding that player representation and management was the career for him. He now works with Mikkel Beck.

Beck is the former Danish international who had a successful soccer career in England with Middlesborough, Derby, Notts Forest and QPR. His career was cut short by injury so he turned to player management. He is now highly regarded throughout the industry as a player’s representative with 15 European internationals among his clientele. His agency has been built so far mainly in Europe, but last month he brought Martin Christensen to sign for Charlton. It helps that he is a fluent linguist who speaks seven languages.

Beck says “good advice and supportive management are crucial to a player’s success. I had one agent throughout my career and I had a terrific relationship with him. He became a friend, always there for me in good times and bad. I try to be like that with the players I look after.”

“For some time I had been looking for someone who had my outlook and approach to help me expand my work into the UK; when Matt and I first worked together over a player I could see we would work well as a team. Matt is dedicated to football and loves the game. He is honest, loyal, and hard working and anxious to do things the right way. He puts the players interests above all else. He understands the thought processes of the player”.

“There is no official system of apprenticeship for player management and representation. I worked alongside someone when I started and that is what Matt is doing with me”.

Graham Dawtrey, Seldon’s football coach and housemaster at prestigious Ardingly College, said “Matt was a talented player who was capable of scoring goals from midfield at a good standard when he was here.

“We were the defending English Schools U19 champions at the time. Matt’s attitude and ambition always helped him on and off the pitch and since he has gone into player management, I have been impressed by his knowledge, dedication , love for the game and honourable approach to looking after his players for the long-term and all the sacrifices of travel and working anti-social hours that this entails.

“He clearly has a good grounding in football and feel for it whilst his obvious integrity will give him every chance of being respected, liked and successful as a player representative. Matt is aware of the dubious reputation of a few player representatives who give the industry a bad name and has deliberately kept true to his values and steered a different course. It is a career which will not be easy to break into but I do believe Matt Seldon has very good credentials to make a go of it”.

Having now passed the FA exams, Matt is an officially licensed representative in the UK.

Seldon told The Courier “I am ambitious BUT I want to do things the right way. I am working with a tremendous person who is highly respected within the football industry. He is NOT just a well known ex-football player but a very nice person and I am proud to be working with him”.