For the second successive year, only six Championship clubs spent less on agents’ fees than Rovers in the most recent 12 month period, figures released by the Football Association have shown.

Rovers spent £535,666 to intermediaries for transfer deals, loan signings and contract renewals between February 1 2020 and January 30 2021.

It is a significant reduction on the £1.158m that was spent in the previous year, and more in line with the £452,858 spent between 2018 and 2019.

Between 2017 and 2018 Rovers spent £764,025, with the figure having been as high as £3.5m in the 2012/13 season, the first since relegation from the Premier League.

The teams to spend less than Rovers in the Championship are: Wycombe (£126,053), Rotherham United (£184,469), Millwall (£255,715), Luton Town (£435,260), Barnsley (£515,162) and Coventry City (£525,571).

Spending across the Championship topped £40.7m, down by around £8.5m from the previous 12 months.

Of the 24 Championship clubs, 14 spent in excess of £1m to agents, with Norwich City spending £6.8m, ahead of AFC Bournemouth (£5.65m) and Stoke City (£3.08m).

Rovers' payments were made across 23 transactions. They included the permanent signings of Antonis Stergiakis, Tyrhys Dolan, Stewart Downing, Harry Pickering, Daniel Ayala, Aynsley Pears and Thomas Kaminski. Of the five loan deals Rovers concluded, only one involved a transaction to an intermediary, that being the addition of Taylor Harwood-Bellis.

All of the other transactions related to contract extensions, including that of Bradley Dack.

Despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Premier League clubs' spending on agents topped £272m, up from £263m from the previous year.

They were the only league that saw an increase, with League One down to £3.1m from £3.9m and League Two to £1.1m from £1.2m. National League spending also fell from £320,000 to £271,000.