Super Football Agent Mino Raiola is in critical condition and not dead according to multiple reports.
Raiola’s agency as well as a close confidant both denied news of his death moments after several outlets reported the 54 year-old died from “an illness after a recent surgery.”
🎙 Mino Raiola’s agency: “They’re fake rumours. He [Mino Raiola] is not dead…”
(Source: @DaniellaMatar)
🎙 Mino Raiola’s right-hand man, José Fortes Rodriguez tells Dutch media: “He’s in a bad position, but he hasn’t died.”
(Source: @sgevans) pic.twitter.com/pTIRI03gTj
— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) April 28, 2022
The Dutch-Italian who is the representative of such stars as Paul Pogba, Erling Haaland and Zlatan Ibrahimovic is said to be in hospital.
Per Fabrizio Romano, Dr. Alberto Zangrillo from San Raffaele Hospital in Milano tells Ansa on Mino Raiola conditions: “I’m outraged by the phone calls from pseudo-journalists speculating on the life of a man who is fighting to survive”.
Dr. Alberto Zangrillo from San Raffaele Hospital in Milano tells Ansa on Mino Raiola conditions: “I’m outraged by the phone calls from pseudo-journalists speculating on the life of a man who is fighting to survive”.
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) April 28, 2022
Mino Raiola has one of the richest client base in football, with names such as Gianluigi Donnarumma, Stefan De Vrij, Marco Verratti, Hirving Lozano, Denzel Dumfries, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Justin Kluivert to name a few.
Forbes estimated last year that Raiola’s personal wealth was in the region of £62m.
It was reported that Raiola earned as much as £20million from the world record £89m sale of Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United in 2016.
During the early 1990s, Raiola worked for the Sports Promotions, a company in Holland, and assisted with the transfers of several high-profile Dutch players, including Dennis Bergkamp, to Italian clubs.
Raiola studied the methods of his colleagues to learn how to conduct such transfers by himself, making extra photocopies of the vital documents, before striking out to negotiate the move of Czech star Pavel Nedved from Sparta Prague to Lazio in 1996.
Since then, Raiola has overseen numerous Ibrahimovic transfers around Europe, as well as Balotelli’s move from Inter Milan to Man City in 2010 and his subsequent switch to AC Milan.
In the summer of 2016, he oversaw the moves of three players – Ibrahimovic, Pogba and Mkhitaryan – to Manchester United all in the same window.
