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“I don’t trade in the market, I am the market,” he once said. Mino Raiola, a Dutch-Italian football agent, at 54, exemplifies the rise of agents in modern football.
He was born into a poor family in southern Italy and grew up in the Netherlands. His parents, workaholics, immigrated to the Netherlands and established a pizza chain there. Raiola likened his family to the Corleones from the “Godfather” movies, only without the violence. His parents taught him an ethic of service: Their pizzeria was an extension of their home, every customer should be treated like family, and if you cleaned the restaurant’s toilets, people would come back.
He brought that morality to football. A born businessman who became a millionaire at the age of 19 after buying and selling McDonald’s in the small city of Haarlem, he began using his language skills to bring Dutch footballers to his parents’ home country.
In the appearance-obsessed football industry, he was always sloppy. “I’m short and fat,” he once explained. “For a long time, people underestimated me. They said, ‘He can’t even wear normal clothes.’ That’s my chance.” His breakthrough came in 1996, when he discovered Czech player “Iron Man” Pavel · Nedved (Pavel Nedved), it didn’t take long for Nedved to become a world-class star. The timing is just right. A new Boseman ruling by the European Court of Justice allows players with expiring contracts to move across the EU without a transfer fee. At the same time, money made from television is pouring into the football market. Players need trusted advisors.
Raiola prides himself on his small number of clients, which allows him to provide warm personal service to everyone as if they were customers of the family’s restaurant back then. Former Dutch defender Rody Turpijn recalls talking about life for hours on the café terrace: “It felt like family. He was always available.”
Some players called Raiola twice a day, but when Mario Balotelli reported his house was on fire, Raiola suggested he go to the fire brigade. Raiola has shown his loyalty to his players, especially his favourite foe, current Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, by publicly berating the club and the coach.
He urged his players to work as hard as Nedved, who treated his training at the club as an appetizer before working harder in his garden. That’s Raiola’s work ethic: “Rest is not part of my profession.”
He understands that even a small transfer of a low-level player can change a person’s life. While other agents aim to maintain a good relationship with the club, Raiola is a tough negotiator, happy to leave the negotiating table or lie about players’ current wages. He usually doesn’t celebrate deals, instead worrying that the club could have paid more if he pushed for a deal.
Concerned that his players have a tendency to splurge, he urged them to invest only in “bricks”, or real estate, preferably in Amsterdam, “the cheapest capital in the world“.
He considers himself the best agent, but not the best father. He estimates he spends 30 days a year at his home in Monaco and the rest visiting his beloved players. When his wife complained, “You have two formal kids and a lot of informal kids,” he joked, “Which are the formal kids?”
He travels across Europe, speaking to club executives in seven languages, listening to their plans and anticipating changes in the transfer market. A decade ago, he realised early on that Italian clubs were running out of money and Paris Saint-Germain were heading for dominance. He urged his client, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, to move from Milan to Paris. Ibrahimovic visited his “best friend” Raiola last week for his final ride.
Rather than wait for an offer from the club, Raiola decides where his players should go and lets it happen. He orchestrated Paul Pogba’s move from Juventus to Manchester United in 2016. The €105m transfer fee was a world record and while Raiola earned an estimated €48m, he managed to secure transfers from both the club and Pogba, which does not match his claim to only work for his own players.
He then took advantage of United’s weak leadership and sold several more of his clients to the club – which the club may now regret. He often attributes his success to the stupidity of the industry. “Other agents are even dumber than me,” he once joked.
His ambitions include becoming FIFA president and reforming football’s global authority; running Italy as an “enlightened dictator” (and splitting the country into north and south); switching to mergers and acquisitions and acquiring a football club. He said his takeover of QPR failed only because of the goal that got them to the Premier League.
In his final months, he was negotiating the biggest transfer in football – Norwegian striker Erling Braut Haaland from Borussia Dortmund. Raiola pitted the major bidding clubs against each other to plan his final payday, though he claimed money was just a scorecard for success.
His death from lung disease was announced twice in advance, allowing him to read his first obituary from his hospital bed in Milan. On Friday, his Twitter account complained: “Informing those who care about my current state of health: Angry because they killed me for the second time in 4 months.” He is left behind by his wife and two sons , and the outstanding Haaland deal.