Roman Kuzminac, handball agent licensed by the French federation, talks about his job and the importance for a handball player to hire an agent. Back on his exclusive testimonial that he delivered to Sportiw…
Can you briefly introduce yourself?
I’m Roman Kuzminac, I’m almost 31 years old and I’m a licensed agent at the French federation since 2014. I set up my company “Handball Talent Agency” with a partner. Before that, I was working with the Hungarian agency “ChampSport”, which is a big agency, especially in the women’s sector.
Since the beginning of the year 2022, we have launched our company where our role is to accompany the players in their career to relieve them of the burden of the job, so that they can focus on the field.
What made you want to do this job and become an agent?
As soon as I entered university at 18, I had the idea, when I finished my degree, to do this, I don’t really know why. I was a student but also a coach at the same time in Montpellier, and accompanying the players was something I liked. I thought about where to go after my degree and I liked the freedom and the fact that I could move around a lot with the possibility of becoming an agent.
How do you find the players you work with?
It depends… At the beginning it was a lot of “canvassing” to introduce ourselves and little by little, word of mouth was established. Now, thanks to the network and word of mouth, exchanges are easier.
But at the beginning it was complicated, we arrived from nowhere and we started from zero. When the first players trusted us, it was something! And then, as time went by, we developed, like in any other job!
What are the criteria for choosing the players you work with?
First of all, you have to believe in the person handballistically speaking! You have to be sure that you can detect a potential. The margin of possible progress is important so that we can accompany him and then it is a question of “feeling”.
"It's not trivial to choose your agent, because you're giving someone the opportunity to speak on your behalf. The feeling is very important and a relationship of trust must be established between the two parts."
Which levels do you work with?
For the women, it goes from first division to third, with a big proportion in first. It was very important for us to have girls of all levels, because what interests us is to help them get from point A to point B, whatever the plan is.
For the men, we are rather on the second division and the third for the moment.
At what level is it important for a handball player to have an agent?
With the men, it’s happening earlier and earlier. Maybe not before the training center, but as soon as the training center, it can be good to be interested in the subject and see if there is not an agent with whom it could be interesting to work.
"It's good to have an agent even when you have a contract that's set up for two years, for example, to create a relationship with the agent in those quieter times and to be ready when the 'hot' times come."
How can a platform like Sportiw be useful in the handball world?
It’s very interesting for the connection between the different sides! Having a platform that allows you to centralize the profiles of players, clubs and agents is really a good idea!
Thanks to Roman Kuzminac for this very interesting interview about the handball agent job! If you want to discover other interviews of handball professionals, click here.