HE represents players and managers. He helps directors of football get jobs, rich men buy football clubs and media types make a living. All he needs is referees and maybe a couple of league big-wigs and he could be a self-contained entity, the master of his own personal universe.

Most casual fans know Jorge Mendes as the agent of José Mourinho and Cristiano Ronaldo, which is enough to earn the “superagent” tag. Yet, in some ways, they are yesterday’s news.

His influence these days goes well beyond assisting clients and extends to owners and club officials.

Facilitating deals and mediating even with players he does not represent – the ultimate recent example being the £50 million transfer of Anthony Martial to Manchester United two summers ago – adds a whole other layer of influence and potential profit.

No matter which of the four semi-finalists who square off this week ends up winning the Champions League, Mendes will get a piece of the action. It’s the ultimate hedge.

At Real Madrid, his clients include Ronaldo, James Rodriguez, Pepe and Fabio Coentrao. At Atletico Madrid, he can count on defender Filipe Luis, midfielders Tiago and Saul Niguez and goalkeeper André Moreira. And then there is Andrea Berta, Atletico’s director of football, who got his gig thanks to Peter Kenyon, former chief executive of Manchester United and Chelsea and a close friend – and former business partner – of Mendes. So much so that, when rumours surfaced Berta was a potential sporting director hire at United, plenty speculated it was thanks to Mendes’ lobbying.

Over at Juventus, his influence is more muted, with only left-back Alex Sandro officially a Mendes client. But things pick up again big time when you look at their opponents Monaco.

Officially, he only has striker Radamel Falcao and attacking midfielder Bernardo Silva. But midfielders Fabinho and João

Moutinho, as well as central defender Jemerson are squarely within his sphere of influence or that of his agency, Gestifute.

In fact, so is the entire club, which is how he got to negotiate the Martial deal as an intermediary. The manager, Leonardo Jardim, is a Mendes guy, one who was brought to the club by Luis Campos, another Mendes man, who used to scout for Mourinho.

Campos left last summer and now works at Lille – another club which could be on its way to join the Mendes family – but that is in part because he is no longer needed. Monaco’s vice-president and de facto chief exec Vadim Vasilyev – a former Soviet diplomat stationed in Iceland, no less – is a close friend and Mendes is his go-to man when it comes to shifting his club’s assets.

What all this means is that whoever wins, Mendes wins.

When you get that big, there are obvious conflicts of interest at every turn. Take Manchester United. It’s in the club’s interest – and that of Mourinho – to either keep David De Gea or sell him for the highest possible price. It’s in De Gea’s interest, assuming he wants to move, to be let go at the lowest possible price.

Or take a macro example. He famously advised Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim on his takeover of Valencia. Then he stocked the club with the likes of Eliaquim Mangala, Ezequiel Garay, Nani, Danilo and a host of other Mendes men in need of a home.

It is not surprising perhaps that Mendes is said to have earned more in 2016 than Ronaldo.

Mendes lore describes him as a self-made semi-professional footballer who diversified from a video store to selling pitch-side advertisements on behalf of his club to running a night club and on to the big time.

They say he is the man with four phones, who is on them 20 hours a day, one step ahead of the competition.

He understood early on that, while looking after individuals is lucrative, looking after the deals that move them around is even better. And, perhaps best of all, is earning and keeping the trust of the billionaires who own the clubs.

That is why he’s already won his own personal Champions League this year.

JOEY Barton’s 18-month ban for betting on football matches – including some in which he played – brought the issue of gambling back to the fore. Because it was Barton, who – love him or loathe him – is articulate and thoughtful, there was plenty of sympathy, particularly given how ingrained gambling culture is in the UK.

As Barton said, he grew up with it. It’s ubiquitous in football – in fact, you have professional gamblers at Brighton and bookmakers at Stoke who own clubs. As Barton pointed out, there was no suggestion he was involved in fixing games.

His manager, Sean Dyche, joked: “I can only assume they will be just as forceful when they take steps to eradicate all cheating that goes on in the game, all the falling to the floor.”

Dyche is missing the broader point. Rules barring players from gambling on football exist for good reasons. They are privy to inside information others are not and the potential for malfeasance is so great – and so difficult to patrol – that a blanket ban makes sense, a bit like insider trading in the stock market.

Barton knew all this. His problem, as he admits, is his addictive personality, for which he has been having treatment. The focus should lie on that – not on the fact that “having a flutter” is less serious than going down in the box when you feel contact.

WE will know more about the outcome of HMRC’s investigation into football – and Newcastle and West Ham specifically – as well as potential abuse of image rights contracts soon. In the meantime – two points.

The first is that HMRC and the legal system effectively set up this situation by allowing the image rights loophole. Decide all compensation – no matter the sort – from a club to a player or his related entities is income and there is no problem.

The other is that this is not just tax avoidance. If proven, such behaviour is cheating in a sporting sense too. It allows you to hire better players than you could afford. Better players lead to better teams which lead to higher finishes which leads to clubs relegated and managers sacked.

It’s a fiscal performance-enhancing drug and should be treated that way.