MINO RAIOLA, ONE of football’s most powerful agents whose high-profile clients included Paul Pogba and Erling Haaland, has died at the age of 54, his family announced on Saturday.
“In infinite sorrow we share the passing of the most caring and amazing Football Agent that ever was,” the Italian’s family said in a message on Twitter.
“Mino fought to the end with the same strength he put on negotiation tables to defend our players. As usual, Mino made us proud and never realised it.”
Raiola’s family did not say from what illness he had been suffering but he had been at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital where he had previously survived scares.
His death comes two days after Italian media reported he had died only for his agency, the head of San Raffaele’s intensive care department and eventually the man himself to deny he had passed away.
— Mino Raiola (@MinoRaiola) April 30, 2022
Raiola built up a glittering portfolio of players, which also included AC Milan forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic, over a long career as both one of the sport’s most influential agents and most controversial characters.
He attracted criticism due to the enormous sums he earned in commissions from his deals and the huge inflation in player salaries – which have risen to previously unimaginable levels since the 1990s – that he helped to fuel.
Raiola was born in Nocera Inferiore in southern Italy but in 1968, still only a one-year-old, he was taken with his family to Haarlem in the Netherlands.
He began his working life at his family’s pizzeria in the medieval city before beginning his long march to becoming one of the most powerful agents in football.
He would regularly butt into conversations being held between the directors of local side Haarlem FC, whose board would dine at the pizzeria at least once a week, offering his opinion on the state of the club regardless of whether it was wanted or not.
Raiola briefly worked as technical director at Haarlem, and then for the Sports Promotions agency, specialising in moving high-profile Dutch players to Italy.
However he had bigger plans, striking out on his own, and by 1996 his first big break came in the shape of Pavel Nedved.
It was Raiola who took Nedved, the elegant Czech midfielder who is now a director at Juventus, to Lazio in 1996 when Serie A was the world’s strongest league and the Roman outfit one of its best teams.
From there Raiola rose to the top of the his field, and pulled no punches when he got there.
He rowed with the likes of Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola over the way he conducted his business, suggesting that Dutch icon Cruyff and Manchester City manager Guardiola, then at Barcelona, should “go to a mental hospital together, shut up, sit there and play cards”.
In 2016, former Juventus general manager Giuseppe Marotta said Raiola earned €27 million from the sale of France international Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United that summer, a world-record transfer worth €105 million.
In an example of the strong opinions Raiola provoked, Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan called him “a parasite” in 2020 after a row on British radio channel TalkSport over the desire of Ibrahimovic to take legal action against video game producer EA Sports for image rights.
He also headed the Football Forum which last year had threatened FIFA with a legal challenge over the proposed capping of commission, seeing it as a violation of freedom of competition.
However his players consistently spoke highly of the man who guided their careers and filled their bank accounts with huge sums.
“Shall I spell it out here? Mino is a genius,” Ibrahimovic wrote in his 2011 autobiography.
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Has he confirmed it on twitter yet?
@Gavin: it’s been reported on Sky News. If it’s still untrue then someone is seriously trolling him in the media.
I can’t say the loss of him as an agent is a bad thing, but it’s still sad to die at such an age. RIP
@Andrew Keane: Couldn’t have said it better myself. Sad that any human should die, but christ on a stick this lad was one greedy huar. Absolutely shafted clubs over negotiations with his players and I was getting so sick of it considering how many stars he was the agent of.
@Ultan Corcoran: so basically what your saying is he was really good at his job! Don’t get me wrong his tactics were certainly questionable to say the least but if you were a top level footballer he was clearly a good man to have in your corner his catalogue of players alone proves that
@Michael: Not saying that for a second, he was obviously world class and probably the best in the business. My gripe is over how many clauses and percentages of fees he pocketed for himself was frankly outrageous. Multiple examples such as getting about 20% of the Pogba fee when he returned to Man Utd. Haaland had a clause inserted in his deal with Dortmund (plus a pretty % for Raiola ofc!) as if to say they were already focused on his next move from the minute the kid landed in North Rhine-Westphalia. His priority was as much about lining the pockets for himself than his client – what I would justifiably call greedy.
@Ultan Corcoran: I agree to an extent but greedy isn’t the correct word for me, it was his profession to milk clubs for all they are worth and he did it very well..I can’t remember a footballer ever sacking him and the highest profile players in the world employed him and were happy enough with his cut because they were getting outrageous contracts aswell its a dirty game and he played it very well..I’ve cursed his name more than once over the years trust me but can’t knock the hustle so to speak!
@Ultan Corcoran: he was due to get 40m from Haaland next move. So he has a conflict of interest and wouldn’t be doing what is best for the player. He’d just be making sure he gets his cut by moving the player on
Everything that’s wrong with football..
@Edmund Orlando: do you have an opinion on the culture of systemic cheating to gain an unfair advantage?
@Bob Murphy: I do Bob, I do… there there….
@Edmund Orlando: well if that’s the case all the problems are fixed now he’s gone /except they aren’t – undoubtedly one of the worst leeches but the financial pollution of the game is way beyond a greedy agent – the glazers the Russian the Saudis the half a million a week for average players- the game has a lot more issues than one greedy agent – justook at the suoerleague nonsense
He was rushed to a local hospital and pronounced dead, he was then transferred to a better hospital and his condition was changed to alive. He was then returned to the original hospital and died a short while later
@Jake Kelly:
Must have been a contractual issue.
RIP
Awful man to deal with for clubs and is the sole reason why agent fees have become such a colossal thing that legislation to ban/cap it is being made. He could guarantee any of his clients a massive wage though even if he did benefit massively. Still very young to die though so RIP Mino.
@Wooden Spoon: he was obviously very good in he’s job and always had clubs over a barrell when it came to he’s clients,but still very sad to go at such a young age, may he rest in peace.
I’d say someone from United is already on the plane to the funeral. . Try and tap up Haaland before he signs with a new agent.
@Jason O Flynn:
@Dave Connolly:
Terrible news. So now Pogba might sign a new deal at Utd……nooooooo
@Ian Hoey:
Will he be able to look after himself, if Rialto said to
Pogba to jump,
he would say how high
There is no getting out of this deal
Again…….
Sad news.
Genuine questions, what happens to the players contracts with him? Do they become free to go to other agents?
Gone to the Super League in Heaven. R.I.P.
He must have identified as a cat…
May the Lord spare him