Mino Raiola has died at the age of 54, but he became a legend by representing and helping to launch the careers of stars like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Mario Balotelli and Erling Haaland.

Born in Italy and moving to the Netherlands with his family as a child, Raiola was a self-made man who created a multi-million-pound empire as well as transforming the idea of football agents.

Perhaps the first really big deal he swung was for Ibrahimovic, spotting the young Swede in the Ajax youth academy.

Ibra’s career saw eight transfers, the biggest of which was worth €69.5m from Inter to Barcelona in 2009.

With his Italian roots, many of Raiola’s most famous deals were done with Serie A sides.

These included Pavel Nedved’s move from Lazio to Juventus in 2001 for €45m.

His masterpiece was Pogba, who left Manchester United as a free agent in the summer of 2012 for Juventus, then was incredibly sold back to the same club for €105m in 2016, at the time an all-time world transfer record.

Matthijs de Ligt had interest from Barcelona, but Raiola took him to Juventus from Ajax for €85.5m in 2019.

Raiola became something of a specialist at getting his players to run down their contracts and leave for free, which of course guaranteed him massive commissions with the clubs lining up.

Gianluigi Donnarumma was the most recent example, quitting Milan for Paris Saint-Germain, while Alessio Romagnoli is poised to follow suit towards Lazio.

Raiola had been in the thick of negotiations for his brightest young talent Erling Braut Haaland, who it is rumoured will be heading for Manchester City after bursting onto the scene at Borussia Dortmund.

The rapport with his players was often a familial one, perhaps none more so than with Mario Balotelli, who Raiola treated like an errant son.

SuperMario had so many moves in various different countries, never fulfilling his enormous potential, but Raiola was always by his side.

Some never flourished at all, like Milan starlet Hachim Mastour, who was in advertising campaigns with Neymar before he’d even made his senior debut for the Rossoneri, but last we saw was a free agent after terminating his contract with Reggina, aged 23.

4 thought on “Raiola, the man who launched Ibrahimovic, Pogba, Balotelli and Haaland”
  1. May he rest in peace. Hopefully players will see all those millions won’t mean much when you are gone. I honestly never felt he the players best intentions at heart. Just commission. I hate he took Gigi from Milan. I think Gigi does too. I wish a better system could be worked out. A fair value for the team selling or buying. A fair pay for the player. And a fair commission for the agent. The greed in football is going to ruin it. I know this won’t go over well. And I am not berating Mino the man. A sad loss for his family and friends.

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