De Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Paul Pogba via the prodigy Erling Haaland or Gianluigi Donnarumma, player agent Mino Raiola, whose death at the age of 54 was announced by his family on Saturday, was one of the most influential intermediaries in the world of football. “It is with infinite sadness that we announce the passing of the most caring and brilliant players’ agent that has ever existed”, wrote his relatives on his Twitter account.
Willingly crafty and divisive, renowned for his glibness and his business sense, the Italian-Dutch was adored by his players, for whom he often won sumptuous contracts, but feared by the clubs, who knew his qualities as a negotiator. Getting along with the greedy Raiola was sometimes difficult. AC Milan knows something about it: in 2021, it had to let go free (for PSG) the best player in the Euro, goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, for failing to satisfy the claims of the agent.
Raiola is also famous for the extraordinary triple commission won on the occasion of Paul Pogba’s transfer in 2016 between Juventus Turin and Manchester United, totaling some 49 million euros for a transfer valued in total at just over 100 million euros, according to documents leaked to the press the following year. To become one of the most prominent agents in world football, at the head of one of the most prestigious teams of players, Mino Raiola took advantage of the development of international transfers in the 1990s, in the wake of the Bosman judgment, and the explosion of TV rights in the 21stand century.
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A stable of stars
Born in 1967 in Italy, in Campania, Carmine Raiola, by his full name, grew up in the Netherlands, in Haarlem, where his family moved when he was one year old. As a teenager, he worked in the family restaurant but above all began to make himself indispensable in the local football club, of which he became a leader in the early 1990s. Gradually, he became interested in player transfers in the Netherlands. then to Italy. He participated in particular in the transaction bringing Dennis Bergkamp from Ajax Amsterdam to Inter in 1993 and then decided to go solo.
The transfer of Pavel Nedved to Lazio Rome in 1996 was one of the first big moves for this man who speaks seven languages. His stable will continue to grow: Pogba, Ibrahimovic (a friend), Balotelli, De Ligt, Verratti, Donnarumma, Marcus Thuram, Kean or even Haaland, a prodigy called to ensure the prosperity of the agent. An agent also wind up against Fifa who intends to regulate the profession and cap commissions: “How is it possible to put a limit on talent? It would be like putting a limit on the prices of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt, ”he thundered in December 2020 in TuttoSport.
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