His name had eventually become almost as famous as that of his clients. Mino Raiola died at the age of 54, announced his family, Saturday, April 30, on Twitter. “It is with infinite sadness that we announce the passing of the most caring and brilliant players’ agent who has ever lived”, wrote his relatives. For thirty years, the Italian agent had become one of the key players in the football transfer market.
To sign a Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a Paul Pogba, a Marco Verratti or hope to poach the Norwegian nugget Erling Haaland, the club presidents had to deal with Raiola, his personality and his manners. “Mino is the kind of guy who can go and toast the VIP lounge of a Champions League match in shorts and tap shoes”had fun his colleague Bruno Satin questioned by The world in 2014.
“He looked like one of the guys from the ‘Soprano’ series”
Zlatan Ibrahimovic recounts his first meeting with his future representative in the early 2000s: “The first time I saw Mino, I thought it was a joke (…). He looked like one of the guys on the show Sopranojeans, Nike t-shirt with huge belly »describes the Swede in Me, Zlatan Ibrahimovic (JC Lattes, 2013).
The suit and tie and physical maintenance, very little for him. Raiola left all of that to Jorge Mendes, the other superstar agent. The trajectory of the two men, however, tells the same story, that of two loudmouths who started from nothing, to become characters as essential as they are decried in the transfer window, this spectacle that has become permanent in the transfer economy.
To each his own legend. Mendes is this nightclub owner from northern Portugal who became Cristiano Ronaldo’s pygmalion. Mino Raiola was the former pizza maker speaking seven languages and with a personal fortune estimated at 50 million euros. Not without some gray areas. The agent was thus implicated in the “Football Leaks” scandal in the mid-2010s, which revealed facts of tax evasion in the football business.
Born November 4, 1967 in Nocera Inferiore (Campania region, Italy), Carmine (his real first name) was only one year old when his parents moved to Haarlem in the Netherlands where the Ristorante Napoli of the Raiola family finds its customers. If he does not put a single pizza in the oven, Mino helps with the dishes, the service and puts his nose in the accounts. He also takes the time to chat with the leaders of FC Haarlem. “At one point, they just said to him: since you know so much, why don’t you join the management? »testified a local journalist, Edwin Struis, to Agence France-Presse in 2016.
But the young man does not linger long as sporting director of a club too modest for his ambitions. In 1993, he placed two of the stars of Ajax Amsterdam, Dennis Bergkamp and Wim Jonk, at Inter Milan. Mino Raiola will never serve pizza again. The Monegasque resident since 1996 imposes his style and methods. He does not sign any formal contract with his proteges and does not hesitate – like Mendes – to steal clients from his colleagues. And, like the Portuguese, he exerts a power of fascination over his players.
To defend them, Raiola highlights them like paintings (Zlatan is thus his Mona LisaMatthijs de Ligt nv night patrol of Rembrandt) and goes to conflict to defend their interests and his own. “ He is not friends with the club bosses but he is with his players. And as soon as they have a problem, he goes to see them., confided one of his colleagues to the World in 2014.
Excessive and tight negotiations
Always between two planes, the man accumulates as much the miles as the noisy declarations. From Pep Guardiola (then coach of FC Barcelona and angry with Ibrahimovic), he confided to the Mirror all his contempt. “As a trainer he’s fantastic, but as a person he’s an absolute zero, a dog, a coward. » In 2012, he called Dutch idol Johan Cruyff a “senile dickhead”before apologizing.
That same year, the Italian placed his “Mona Lisa” Ibrahimovic in Paris and became the privileged agent of the leaders of Paris-Saint-Germain. When the Parisian club signed Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma in July 2021, at the risk of weakening the incumbent, Keylor Navas, some see Raiola’s influence on the sporting director, Leonardo.
In 2016, Mino Raiola once made Paul Pogba the most expensive player in history with an estimated €120m move to Manchester United. In recent months, the agent has multiplied the statements and leads (like that of PSG) about the future of his protege, whose game made him think of the creations of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
From now on, the world of football will have to live without the excesses, the tight negotiations and the artistic references of Carmine Raiola.