Mino Raiola: the former waiter in an Italian restaurant behind summer’s biggest deals, from Ibrahimovic to Pogba to Mkhitaryan
HE is the man who has negotiated over £HALF-A-BILLION worth of transfers and will be behind this summer's biggest deals – and it all started for him as a waiter in his family's restaurant.
Paul Pogba, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Romelu Lukaku and Mario Balotelli are among his clients.
Meet super-agent Mino Raiola, who will be a busy boy this summer.
Raiola, 48, is an Italian-born Dutchman, who moved over to Holland with his family when he was just a one year old baby.
As he grew up in Holland, he worked in his family's Italian restaurant called Napoli, which was a success because of their use of authentic Italian produce.
READ: Paul Pogba tells friends he wants to move to Manchester United
Raiola, who can speak SEVEN languages, had a better grasp of Dutch than his father and negotiated with the buyers from a young age.
Away from the restaurant, Raiola spent two years at law school, while also playing for local team HFC Haarlem.
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From there, he was given a job at Sport-Promotion, an agency which looked after many of the top Dutch stars at the time.
Owing to his fluency in Dutch and Italian he was an integral part of the major transfers the agency conducted - Dennis Bergkamp and Wim Jonk from Ajax to Inter Milan for a combined total of £11million in 1993.
Then it was time to leave the company and set up his own business, with his first major deal being Pavel Nedved from Sparta Prague to Lazio following the Czech playmaker's outstanding performances at Euro '96.
With his own company, he began to get many Ajax players as clients, and a meeting with one young Swedish player would form a relationship that has cost more than £130m in transfer fees alone - Ibrahimovic.
Ibrahimovic tells the story of how they first met in his autobiography, I am Zlatan, with the super-agent turning up to a posh restaurant wearing scruffy jeans and a T-shirt, before "stuffing himself" on a "massive spread".
"Was he supposed to be an agent, that weirdo? And then when we ordered, what do you think they brought us? A few pieces of sushi with avocado and prawns? We got a massive spread, enough to feed five people, and he started stuffing himself."
He soon won Ibrahimovic over, however, detailing other top European strikers records compared to his over the lunch, and he has been his agent ever since.
He does have enemies though. Sir Alex Ferguson blamed Raiola for starlet Pogba's Manchester United exit in 2012. Ferguson said that Pogba was close to signing a new contract with United before Raiola came on board as his agent, but because himself and Raiola were like "oil and water" it not materialise and Pogba signed for Juventus.
Fergie wrote in his book, Leading: "There are one or two football agents I simply do not like. And Mino Raiola, Paul Pogba's agent, is one of them.
"I distrusted him from the moment I met him. He became Zlatan Ibrahimovic's agent while he was playing for Ajax, and eventually he would end up representing Pogba, who was only 18 years old at the time.
"We had Paul under a three-year contract, and it had a one-year renewal option which we were eager to sign. But Raiola suddenly appeared on the scene and our first meeting was a fiasco.
"He and I were like oil and water. From then on, our goose was cooked because Raiola had been able to ingratiate himself with Paul and his family and the player signed with Juventus."
So, onto to this summer then...
Well, firstly there is Pogba. Will he surpass Gareth Bale's £85m transfer and make a world-record move?
The French midfielder looks certain to leave Juventus before the start of next season and Real Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester City plus a shock return to United are all on the cards.
Then we have Borussia Dortmund's Mkhitaryan. The £30m-rated Armenian assist machine has been heavily linked a move to the Premier League, with Arsenal and Manchester United chasing his signature.
A few more goals at the Euros and Everton will find it had to keep hold of the prolific Lukaku. The Belgian striker has found the net twice so far at Euro 2016 in France.
And finally, back to the mercurial Ibrahimovic. He officially leaves Paris-Saint Germain next month, with it looking more and more likely that he will be playing for Jose Mourinho at United when they take on Leicester City in the Community Shield on August 7.
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