By Sulaimon Jamiu
Tributes have continued to trickle in from the football world and beyond after the game’s top agent, Mino Raiola passed away.
Recall that BlackBox Nigeria reported that the Italian agent breathed his last on Saturday following a protracted illness. He was aged 54.
Here are 10 things to know about the late super-agent.
1. Raiola was born in 1967 in Nocera Inferiore, Salerno, in southern Italy.
2. He spent his younger years working as a waiter. At the same time, he obtained his high school diploma and attended university for two years, enrolling in the Faculty of Law.
3. He started playing football for the youth team of HFC Haarlem but stopped at age 18 in 1987 to become head of the youth team.
4. Following a brief stint as a player and administrator, Raiola became a football agent and he began working at Sports Promotions, a sports agent company and assisted in the transfers of several high-profile Dutch players to Italian clubs.
5. His first independent big transfer was Pavel Nedvěd’s signing from Sparta Prague for Lazio following his impressive performance at UEFA Euro 1996, where Nedvěd’s Czech Republic reached the final.
6. In 2008, Raiola was involved in two disciplinary hearings instigated by the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) for transfer irregularities as part of a wider investigation of professional football by Italian authorities.
7. In August 2016, after closing the world record transfer of Paul Pogba to Manchester United, Raiola made a reported €25 million from Pogba’s €105 million transfer. Subsequently, he bought the former Miami home of one of America’s most famous mob bosses, Al Capone, for €9 million.
8. On 22 January, 2020, Raiola was among a number of high profile football agents including Jorge Mendes and Jonathan Barnett who threatened FIFA with legal sanctions following the planned cap on transfer payments.
9. He spoke seven languages: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch.
10. Some of Raiola’s prominent clients were Erling Haaland, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Felipe Mattioni, Mario Balotelli, Pavel Nedvěd, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Paul Pogba, Étienne Capoue, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Matthijs de Ligt, Marco Verratti, Hirving Lozano and Romelu Lukaku.
