The well-known football agent Mino Raiola has passed away due to illness at the age of 54, according to a number of reports.
Both TgLa7 and Tancredi Palmeri reported that Raiola died today after an illness, but now Fabrizio Romano is claiming that he is in fact not dead however he is ‘fighting to survive’. Dr. Alberto Zangrillo from San Raffaele Hospital in Milano told ANSA: “I’m outraged by the phone calls from pseudo-journalists speculating on the life of a man who is fighting to survive”.
Raiola represents a number of notable players including Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Marco Verratti, Matthijs de Ligt, Erling Haaland and Mario Balotelli. He has also had encounters with Milan in the past as he looks after the interests of current striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic and former goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Raiola was born in Italy but moved to the Netherlands in his younger years and actually started his involvement with football by playing for the youth team of HFC Haarlem, but stopped at age 18 to become head of the youth team.
He began working at the agency Sports Promotions and became known for helping Dutch players move to Italy such as Ajax’s Bryan Roy (who joined Foggia), Marciano Vink (to Genoa), Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp (both to Internazionale).
He started his own company then which still exists today and his first major client was Pavel Nedvěd’s who moved from Sparta Prague to Lazio.
Our thoughts are with those close to him at this difficult time.
