Mino Raiola

Carmine "Mino" Raiola [ˈmino ˈrajola] is the agent of Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic^[1] and Italian striker Mario Balotelli,^[2] and he was for many years the agent of former Czech Republic star midfielder Pavel Nedved.^[3]

Raiola was born in Nocera Inferiore, in Salerno province; thanks to his Italian origins he has good contacts with most important Italian clubs. Raiola moved to Haarlem (Netherlands) in 1968 at age one with his parents. He worked in the Italian restaurant Napoli of his parents and went to law school. In 1987, Raiola started his own company. In addition to his business, Raiola also focused on a career in football. At the age of 22 he joined HFC Haarlem. He had to leave again soon. In his own words, he voluntarily resigned because the rest of the board was too conservative. After a brief adventure as a player and administrator, however, he remained involved in the football world, this time as a football agent. Raiola worked at Sports Promotions. The eloquent Raiola rapidly worked himself upwards and he assisted in the transfer of Ajax player Bryan Roy (in 1992 to Foggia), Marciano Vink (1993 to Genoa), Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp (both in 1993 to Internazionale) and Michel Kreek (in 1994 to Padova). After some time he decided to leave the company and start for his own. His first big transfer was that of Pavel Nedved, who after a good run at Euro 1996 could sign a contract with Lazio.

Just after the turn of the century Raiola came to Ajax with his own business. It earned him a new clientele that consisted of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mido and Maxwell. On 31 August 2004, the last day in the summer when transfers were possible, Raiola led Ibrahimović for an amount of 16 million euros to Juventus. Maxwell and Grygera decided not to renew their contract with Ajax, making both players free transfers. After these transfers Ajax for a long time did no business with Raiola.

Even without Ajax Raiola was successful, however. He guided the transfers to Internazionale (2006) and Barcelona (2009) of Ibrahimović. In the period 2010-2011 Raiola managed to become involved in five AC Milan transfers (Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Robinho, Mark van Bommel, Emanuelson and Didac Vilà), even though not all the players in question are clients of him.

Today, more than 20 players in European leagues are represented by Mino Raiola.^[4]

He currently resides in Monaco.

In 2008, he was involved in two disciplinary hearings instigated by the Federazione Italiana Giuoco Calcio (FIGC) for transfer irregularities.^[5][6][7][8]

Clients

• Zdeněk Grygera (2009–present^[9])
• Zlatan Ibrahimović (2003^[10][11] - present)
• Martin Jol (football manager)
• Felipe Mattioni (2008^[12] - present)
• Mario Balotelli (2010^[13] - present)
• Maxwell (2009^[14] - present)
• Pavel Nedved (2003^[3][10] - present)
• Kerlon Moura Souza (2007^[15] - present)
• Marek Hamsik (?–present)
• Vladimír Weiss (?–present)
• Mark van Bommel (2010–present)
• Marvin Zeegelaar (2009–present)
• Pajtim Kasami (?-present)
• Oussama Assaidi (2011–present)
• Omar el Kaddouri (2012–present)
• Luciano Narsingh (2010–present)
• Bartosz Salamon (2013–present)
• Henrikh Mkhitaryan (2013–present^[16])
• Paul Pogba (?–present)
• Stanislav Manolev (?-present)
• Ouasim Bouy (?-present)
• Étienne Capoue (2013–present^[17])
• Blaise Matuidi (2013–present^[18])
• Gregory van der Wiel (?-present^[18])

Raiola has also represented clubs, negotiating transfer deals involving

• Dennis Bergkamp
• Robinho
• Marciano Vink
• Bryan Roy
• Michel Kreek
• Wim Jonk

Selection of transfer deals brokered

References