Albion today defended their policy on the payment of fees to agents after spending over £250,000 in the past six months.

The cash-strapped Seagulls say fees to agents for their foreign signings were justified and saved the club money in transfer costs.

Latest figures released by the Football League reveal Albion paid £255,000 to agents between July and December last year.

The vast majority of it went on the deals involving French wingers Seb Carole and Alex Frutos and Argentinian striker Federico Turienzo.

Chairman Dick Knight said: "I fully support the League's initiative on agents but the bald figures don't always tell the full story on how modern business is done.

"Last close season we brought a number of new players into the club, for whom we would have had to pay larger transfer fees to their clubs than the fees we negotiated with their agents to secure the players' release.

"Essentially, the net effect of the transactions was a financial saving for Albion, and the agents' fees are spread beyond the League's reporting period.

"We will use agents in this way when it's to our advantage in the acquisition of players."

The issue of agents' fees coincides with the saga of former loan goalkeeper Wayne Henderson's return to Albion from Aston Villa on a permanent basis.

The clubs agreed a fee of £20,000, plus £15,000 if the Seagulls stay up, over a week ago.Completion of the deal has been delayed by what manager Mark McGhee described as an "impasse" with Henderson's agent which has nothing to do with the player.

Henderson joined Albion on loan earlier this season as a result of McGhee's friendship with Villa assistant and ex-Celtic team-mate Roy Aitken.

"We resist paying agents fees if we are dealing with a player we have directly targeted, whether at home or abroad," McGhee said.

"It's different if someone comes cold to us that we've never heard of and we end up signing him.

"That has happened and we feel, on balance, in doing that we've had good value when you add up what we've paid for the players we've brought into the club.

"I include the ones from this country that we don't pay fees for. Darren Currie had an agent, I brought him here on a free transfer and Darren's agent didn't get paid.

"Darren went to Ipswich for £250,000 and the agent still didn't get paid. With that one deal we have covered the agents' fees we have paid.

"With us it's almost like a scouting job they have done for us, as opposed to a negotiating job.

"I think where it grates is if you are asked to pay money simply for an agent negotiating a player's contract."

Meanwhile, McGhee has backed the bung claims of Championship rival Mike Newell by revealing he was once offered a sweetener at Wolves.

Luton chief Newell meets with the Football Association next week to discuss allegations that club officials and agents have offered him sweeteners to sell players.

McGhee's experience of transfer skullduggery came during his three-year reign at Molineux.

"People have spoken in a way that suggests when you are doing a deal there could be (a sweetener)," McGhee said.

"Only once was it strong enough that anyone gave me an indication that is what they were really talking about.

"That was when I was Wolves. I went straight to the club secretary and told him about it and that I wanted it noted that it had happened, just in case it was ever raised at any point."

McGhee's spell in charge of Wolves ended in 1998, encouraging the widely held belief that Newell's claims relate to unspoken practices which have been part and parcel of the game for years.

"It obviously does happen to a degree but it's not something I've got great experience of," McGhee said.

"Maybe I'm naive but I know lots of managers who are friends of mine and I don't believe any of them would be involved in anything like that.

"Relatively speaking, managers at all levels get fairly well paid for the job they do, so there's no real need for that.

"At a club like ours we very rarely do deals anyway, so to be involved in that would be difficult.

"I think where there is the opportunity is in overseas deals. That's where it would be most prevalent in the sense that agents are paid fees, the money does go overseas and from there who knows where it goes, particularly when you are talking about large sums?"