Mino Raiola, powerful soccer player agent, has passed away on Saturday afternoon as confirmed by a message on his official Twitter account. Haaland’s representative, Pogba and Ibrahimovicamong others, has died at the age of 54 after not being able to overcome his lung problems.
The announcement came 48 hours after he published the news of his death, which was denied on Thursday by his doctor. “I am outraged by the calls from pseudo-journalists speculating about the state of a man who is struggling to survive,” Dr. Alberto Zangrillo told Ansa news agency from the San Raffaele hospital. “Angry because for the second time in four months they have killed me,” said Raiola’s official account on Thursday, which announced the death.
“It is with infinite sorrow that we announce the transfer of the most loving and wonderful football agent there has ever been,” said the statement after his death. “Mino fought until the end with the same force that he put into the negotiation tables to defend the players from him”, to conclude by asking “I respect the privacy of family and friends in these moments of pain”
— Mino Raiola (@MinoRaiola) April 30, 2022
Raiola was experiencing lung problems to the point that in January he was admitted to the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, despite the fact that they were later qualified in a statement indicating that Raiola “was subjected to ordinary medical check-ups in need of anesthesia. There has been no emergency intervention.”
700 million turnover
Born in 1967 in Nocera Inferiore (Salerno, Italy), he had played in the youth team of HFC Harleem after emigrating to the Netherlands as a child. But he immediately went to the other side of the barrier. In the family pizzeria where he lent a hand, the president of Haarlem used to go. “I always told him that I didn’t understand anything about football. One day, he comes looking for me and says, ‘Listen, try it yourself. He made me sporting director.’ He realized that if there was no money involved, the task was almost impossible and he moved to the field of representation. His first hit was the transfer of Bergkamp to Inter in 1993, followed by snowedwhich would end up being the Ballon d’Or, to Lazio.
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He then began to gain fame with an atypical style: in a world of ties and branded suits, it was common for him to appear at negotiations in shorts and flip-flops or in tracksuits. “He looked like a guy from ‘The Sopranos,'” Ibrahimovic recalled he thought upon meeting him. “Do you want to be the best or show off? You must train three times harder & rdquor ;, Raiola snapped, telling him that he would be his agent if he traded his Porsche for a Fiat and his Rolex for a normal watch.
Not only Zlatan was put in his pocket but also illustrious clients such as Robinho, Balotelli, De Ligt, Donnarumma or Moise Kean. Raiola was, just after jorge mendes, the most famous agent on the football scene. He pocketed 48 million in the acquisition of Pogba by Manchester United and 11.5 for the transfer to Barça of Ibrahimovic. The turnover of his company had exceeded 700 million. Now he hoped to close the commission of the year with the transfer of the Norwegian Haaland, for which he was asking for 40 million for him and 30 for the father of the Borussia Dortmund striker. Raphaela Peppera lawyer who has been handling Raiola’s negotiations since he was hospitalized, will now be in charge of managing the Mino gold mine.