Blackburn Rovers forked out more than £3.5 million on agents’ fees last season despite only just avoiding relegation to the third tier of English football, a Football League report has revealed.

The document showed that the Championship club spent £3,538,034 on agents’ fees, which works out at almost one-fifth of the £21,502,362 handed over to agents by league clubs.

It is thought Blackburn’s total was so high due to the club signing several big names after being relegated in the summer of 2012, as the likes of Jordan Rhodes, Danny Murphy and Nuno Gomes moved to Ewood Park.

Yet despite the outlay the Lancashire club ended the campaign in 17th place, just four points above the relegation zone — and managing director Derek Shaw admitted the big-spending approach of last summer did not work.

He said: “After suffering relegation from the Premier League there was an influx of new signings, including a number of ‘high-profile’ players on lucrative contracts, in the hope that we would make an immediate return to the top flight.

“Regrettably those moves didn’t work out, both in terms of results on the pitch and from a financial point of view, which is something we have worked hard to put right this summer.”

Two of the three teams who won promotion last season — Crystal Palace and Cardiff — spent more than one million pounds on agents, as did Leeds and Nottingham Forest.

Overall spending on agents by Championship clubs rose by £521,125, with current table-toppers Blackpool the only side in the league to spend nothing on agents.

League One spending rose by £298,183 to £2,229,019 with promoted side Bournemouth spending the most (£688,666) on agents and in League Two there was a big drop of £362,161 spent on agents.