RARELY can one speech from a football manager have sparked such a vigorous and vitriolic debate.

When former Hartlepool manager Mike Newell described agents as "parasites" and "the scourge of the game" at a low-key public event on Wednesday, he surely cannot have anticipated the furore that would accompany his comments.

Perhaps he did. Perhaps, in a mood of acute altruism, he felt the football community needed to embark on a spell of intense self-reflection and confront the demons that lurk in its shadows.

More likely, though, is that an off-the-cuff remark has snowballed into something far more significant and damaging.

Whatever Newell's intentions, and judging by the headstrong nature of his spell at Victoria Park, anything is possible, there is no going back now.

Next week, he will stand before a Football Association committee to substantiate his comments that transfer bungs in football are rife. What happens next will affect how the sport conducts itself in an era of unprecedented wealth. Unsurprisingly, the various pillars of the football community are already jockeying for the moral high ground.

Agents, perhaps predictably, have found themselves squarely in the firing line.

"Millions of pounds have gone out of the game that will not be seen again," claimed Newell.

"A lot of people involved with the agents and doing the deals are getting backhanders. That's without question."

The image of the unscrupulous agent is a well-established one. With so much money moving from one club to another, it has long been suspected that certain agents have paid certain managers to sign one of their players.

The football community is like a giant village and it does not take long to stumble across the name of an agent who is rumoured to be bending the rules to his own advantage.

Football's leading figures would be expected to speak out against such unethical and illegal practices. Significantly, though, they are increasingly questioning the value of agents full stop.

Yesterday, Lord Mawhinney, the chairman of the Football League, praised the 72 clubs under his control for cutting the amount of money they had paid to agents in the second half of last year.

The inference, which he did little to hide, was that football would be better off without them.

"By putting these figures into the public arena, league clubs have provided the catalyst for a wider debate about the role of agents in football," said Mawhinney.

"I am encouraged we have seen a reduction in the amount being paid to agents."

But would football really be better served if agents were to be outlawed tomorrow?

Newell might think so, but a number of his peers disagree.

To many managers, and not just those who are rumoured to have indulged in some illegal practices in the past, agents represent a valuable cog in the football machine.

Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy insists he has never seen anyone offering financial inducements or bungs, and disagrees with those who claim agents are merely parasites preying on vulnerable footballers who are either too young or too nave to look after their own interests.

"All the players have representatives of some kind," he said. "Unless Mike comes out and names names, he's tarring all of them with the same brush and I don't think that's either right or fair.

"I've been involved in football for a lot of years now, and I haven't seen anything like he's talking about. In my experience, agents get an unfair press in terms of the job they do.

"There's nothing wrong with looking after players' interests and there's nothing wrong with them getting paid for doing the job they do.

"There's a similar arrangement in all kinds of walks of life but, for some reason, it seems to cause headlines in football.

"With the way that football has gone, it's unrealistic to think that a young professional can negotiate his way through the game.

"Would we honestly expect someone like Theo Walcott (the 16-year-old wonderkid who is expected to leave Southampton later this month) to sit down opposite Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho and do all of his negotiations himself?

"Would we really expect a kid like that to know all the ins and outs of what he's going to be asked to sign?

"Of course we wouldn't. He needs a representative, whether that's someone from the PFA, a laywer, or a registered agent.

"There will be a package for that player and his representative will be paid for the work he has done. I've got no beef with that."

Others do, though, arguing that millions of pounds are being haemorrhaged from the game every time a transfer deal takes place. Countering that criticism is the challenge that agents now face.

Paul Austin is a Darlington-based lawyer, who doubles up as a sports representative for Austin Sanders Sports Management, a company that represents more than a dozen North-Eastern footballers.

He insists that Newell's criticisms are entirely unfounded and claims agents are forces of good rather than an unnecessary evil.

"In all of my dealings with football - and there have been a lot of them - I have never seen any evidence of what Mike is alleging," said Austin. "Bungs do not exist. I've never come across them and I don't know anyone that has.

"Agents are easy targets, but people criticise them in one breath and then use them in the next. Look at George Reynolds - he said he wouldn't use agents but, when it suited him, he wouldn't hesitate to give them a ring.

"Agents play a vital role in helping players make the most of their potential. Managers and coaches do that in terms of what happens on the pitch, we do it in terms of what happens off it."

Yet the criticisms levelled by Newell refuse to go away. If what he alleges is true, the FA will be urged to introduce a new code of governance to ensure the financial integrity of the game.

There will also be calls for the abolition of the agent.

Despite those calls enjoying an abundance of popular support, they are almost certain to go unheeded.

Perhaps, on reflection, that is not a bad thing.