Agent Mino Raiola claims football doesn’t need FIFA and says he ‘cannot accept that an organisation that has people in jail wants to regulate my business’.
The Football Stakeholders’ Committee and the FIFA council want to apply new reforms for agents and players, completely changing the current business model in football.
FIFA claims it will protect the integrity of football, hoping to introduce a cap on commissions and a licensing system that has Raiola fuming.
Agent Mino Raiola claims football doesn’t need FIFA and says he ‘cannot accept that an organisation that has people in jail wants to regulate my business’.
The Football Stakeholders’ Committee and the FIFA council want to apply new reforms for agents and players, completely changing the current business model in football.
FIFA claims it will protect the integrity of football, hoping to introduce a cap on commissions and a licensing system that has Raiola fuming.
Raiola believes the changes will not help and rather punish players than help, despite offering more transparency into the business around the transfer market.
Raiola, who’s the agent of big names in Italy like Gigio Donnarumma at Milan, Matthijs de Ligt at Juventus and Inter defender Stefan de Vrij, said FIFA is part of ‘an old system’ not needed in the modern game.
"I think FIFA should not exist. My dream, and hopefully I live to see it, is to see a new football system, a more honest system and industry," Raiola told The Athletic. "It’s an old system.
“When you have scandals every year, it’s not a coincidence anymore. It’s a pattern, it’s part of your DNA, it’s because your organisation is what it is. So the big question today in 2021 is: what is the sense of having FIFA?"
Raiola hit out at the organisation and said he’s fighting FIFA for the good of his own clients, pointing at the new rules as a way of ‘taking away the power of the player’.
"I cannot accept that an organisation that has people in jail wants to regulate my life and my business,” he continued. “I will not accept it.
“I will not accept they are my boss. I will not accept that they want to regulate things in a way that is not logical, not honest, and against my principles. I will fight for the rights of the players because they want to take away the power of the player. And I will not accept that. I never did, and I never will.”
Milan’s 39-year-old forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one of the profiles on Raiola’s list of clients and the agent claimed his long relationship with the Sweden international proves that he’s close to his clients.
The agent then explained how his job is to protect the players in the modern world of football.
“Everybody knows the relationship I have with my players is very strong,” Raiola said. “Zlatan has had 20 years with me, so the relationship with him is even stronger.
“Zlatan is stronger than he even knows. But I am also there to protect him, to say, ‘Listen, you’re making a fool of yourself, stop’.
“That has to be my job, to look at him and say, ‘You know, don’t do this’.”