Mino Raiola has passed away, Italy reports Tg La7† The Dutch-Italian agent had been struggling with health problems for a long time. He turned 54 years old. Raiola’s family and his real estate agency have not yet confirmed the sad news, while the hospital where he is said to be is also not confirming.
In January wrote BILD although Raiola spent several weeks in intensive care at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan. He would have been there because of a lung disease. The reporting seemed to be at odds with the announcement that Raiola himself made to the world on Wednesday 12 January via his Twitter account. “Mino Raiola is undergoing regular medical checkups that require anesthesia,” it read. “Everything was planned and there was no emergency surgery.” As a result, the reporting of La Gazzetta dello Sportwhich earlier that day did speak of emergency surgery, has already been denied.
Raiola ended up in the hospital in mid-January. The agent was in preparation for a meeting with the Borussia Dortmund management about the future of Erling Braut Haaland. Raiola has also acted as agent for players such as Paul Pogba, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Marco Verratti. The renowned advocate also had many Dutch people under his care, including Matthijs de Ligt, Ryan Gravenberch, Stefan de Vrij, Donyell Malen, Denzel Dumfries, Myron Boadu, Justin Kluivert, Owen Wijndal and Calvin Stengs.
Raiola saw the light of day in Salerno, Italy, but left for Haarlem a year later with his parents. His father opened a successful pizzeria in the city in North Holland, where Raiola worked next to his law degree. At the age of nineteen Raiola started working at Sport Promotion, the company of well-known Dutch agent Rob Jansen. He was involved in some big transfers, including Dennis Bergkamp’s to Internazionale, but decided to start his own business a year later. After his first major transfer – where he brought the then unknown Pavel Nedved to Lazio after an impressive European Championship in 1996 – Raiola quickly became a renowned name in football and built up an impressive player base.
The advocate was responsible for some high-profile transfers. For example, Zlatan Ibrahimovic transferred under his care in 2009 for sixty million euros from Internazionale to Barcelona. Raiola was also partly responsible for the much-discussed return of Paul Pogba to Manchester United in 2016 for no less than 130 million euros. The wealth that the Dutch-Italian had built up with his company was estimated by Quote in 2021 at around two hundred million euros.