Mino Raiola, the football super-agent whose high-profile clients included Erling Haaland and Paul Pogba, has died aged 54. According to Italian reports, Raiola, who also represents Zlatan Ibrahimovic, has passed following an illness.
In January, his official Twitter account confirmed that he had undergone surgery after being hospitalised, although the nature of the operation wasn’t revealed. A tweet read: “Mino Raiola is undergoing ordinary medical checks that require anestesia. All was planned and no emergency surgery happened.”
But the news of his untimely death has shocked the football world as the season approaches the transfer window, where he has thrived as one of the sport’s leading agents for years. Haaland, Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic were Raiola’s most prominent clients, and he has been central in many of the trio’s blockbuster transfers.
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He started his agency career with Sports Promotions, a sports agent firm, with his early experience of brokering deals involving players moving from the Netherlands to Italy. Bryan Roy, Dennis Bergkamp, Michel Kreek were among those who profited from his service.
After his time with Sports Promotions, Raiola went from strength to strength in the industry and represented more than 20 elite footballing names, including some of the biggest the sport has to offer. Gianluigi Donnarumma, Marco Verratti, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mario Balotelli are other names under his stewardship.
His exploits centred around European football, and in 2021, he was said to boast a net worth of around £62million. Whilst Italian reporters breaking the news credited his allegeddeath to an ‘illness’, it is understood he has been battling lung disease in recent months.
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Raiola has developed a significant reputation in Manchester after being heavily involved in notable transfers for both of the city’s clubs. He played a role in the first transfer of the Sheikh Mansour era as Manchester City beat Chelsea to Real Madrid’s Robinho for a then-British record £32.5m.
The Italian also had a big say in Pogba’s initial Manchester United exit in 2012, advising the Frenchman to leave the club for first-team football. He wasn’t popular with legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson for doing so. The Scotsman was quoted: “There are one or two football agents I simply do not like, and Mino Raiola is one of them. I distrusted him from the moment I met him.”
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