Sir Kenny Dalglish’s new project has been confirmed as the Liverpool icon joins forces with his son

Sir Kenny Dalglish will have representation for the first time as his son launches a new sports agency.

TaP23, founded by Paul Dalglish and talent manager and lawyer Ben Mawson, launched with the aim of providing full scale management to athletes.

Mawson, an award-winning music manager, has been behind some of the industry’s biggest stars, including Liverpool fan Lana Del Rey and Dua Lipa, whose classic ‘One Kiss’ was adopted by the Reds at the 2018 Champions League final in Kiev.

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Dalglish enjoyed a successful playing career spanning Newcastle United, Norwich City and Blackpool before spending time in America where he moved into the backroom staff with Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake as well as success in the dugout with Austin Aztec.

Injuries have hampered the 48-year-old’s playing time, but he has tasted success as a manager and coach, moving into the role of general manager at Miami FC. In the city of Florida, Mawson and Dalglish rekindled their friendship, attending Merchant Taylor’s School in Crosby together.

Dalglish was among the first agents to complete FIFA’s Player-Agent Program and believes that from his career on and off the pitch, as well as expert guidance from TaP23, the new agency can be a success.

He told the ECHO: “From my playing career you learn a bit of the good and a bit of the bad. You learn what can be achieved if things can be done at a high level, and you also learn what the consequences are if you take your eye off the ball.

“It definitely prepared me for it, I think Arrigo Sacchi said that when someone asked that he didn’t have a playing career he said ‘I didn’t think you had to be a horse before you could be a jockey’ and it’s true.

“Just because you’ve been a player, manager or general manager doesn’t mean you’re automatically going to be competent, but what it does is give you experience in different aspects, it gives you an insight into what it feels like to be a player. in good and bad situations.”

Sir Kenny also has a non-executive advisory role for the company, but with the support of Liverpool’s iconic captain and manager, the Scot has opted to hand his son responsibility for managing his opportunities moving forward. Already, the 73-year-old is meeting with parents and potential players who may join the agency.

Paul added: “My dad will really be an ambassador for us, he’s got so much experience and at the end of the day he’s Kenny Dalglish but he’s my dad.

“Like if any of my sisters wanted to get involved in a business, he would help and support them, he’s already met with parents and players just to be a source of information. If he can pass on something from his experience or guidance. players or parents, that’s what he’s willing to do.

“It’s as much as people want him to be involved and as much as he wants to be involved, but he supports them 100 percent.

“He’s never had management his whole career – he’s had an accountant his whole life, when he saw what we were doing and the level we were doing it, he asked us to start doing it for him.

“My dad and I are working on a few projects, so this is the biggest support he could give.”

TaP23 has launched its network in England, Scotland and Wales as it seeks to put coaching, development and psychological wellbeing at the heart of its offering.

They will also look to strategize career paths while off the field, the agency will look to help build, protect and grow their client profiles to exploit opportunities for commercial collaborations.

Mawson continued: “In football the traditional agent has mostly dealt, as we’ve seen, with football and transfers, he felt that from the outside looking in there was an opportunity for a new approach to it.

“Sportsmen are public figures now and I could never bring footballing credibility even though I have a musical background and a legal background.

“(When) Paul and I spoke, the conversations evolved with Paul and the Dalglish family, the whole experience between them was the missing piece of the puzzle to make a big scale where we look after a player to help him improve on the field. from football to transfers, finding the right club and career planning – which Paul does – which goes to the needs off the pitch, which is my speciality.

“It took a while to look at the industry together and look at what we felt would be the perfect mix for the company, it coincided with FIFA introducing these very strict exams for anyone wanting to represent players to ensure that the footballers are being represented by properly qualified people”.

Dalglish concluded: “People will try to poke holes in it. We had to make sure before we were ready and we have all these different ways to support the player with advice.

“But firstly we need to see how we can improve the players as footballers, the reason we do things differently is because when you sign with TaP, you don’t just have an agent, you have management – a team who are experts in their field .

“The requirements for a footballer have changed over the last 10 years, management hasn’t really changed, we are a real team based approach, we have the best of everything, social media, PR and football, that’s why we feel they are different .”