Mino Raiola, football agent of superstars Paul Pogba, Erling Haaland, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, has died at the age of 54 following an illness.
According to UK Mirror, the death of Raiola was announced in Italy on Thursday.
The Italian football agent was hospitalised in Milan in January and underwent very delicate surgery but the nature of the illness was not revealed.
“Mino Raiola was subjected to ordinary medical checks which required anesthesia.
“These are scheduled checks, there has been no emergency intervention,” a short statement on Raiola’s official Twitter account in January read.
The Italian was one of the biggest football agents in the world, representing Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba, Erling Haaland, Marco Verratti, Moise Kean, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Mario Balotelli, Romelu Lukaku, among others.
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Raiola played a role in many big-money transfers during his successful career, such as Pogba’s record-breaking move from Juventus to Manchester United in the summer of 2016.
The agent’s career started in the eighties, brokering Dennis Bergkamp’s move from Ajax to Inter Milan in the summer of 1993.
He was involved in Robinho’s historic move from Real Madrid to Manchester City, the first transfer of the Sheikh Mansour era.
Raiola’s involvement in several big-money transfers helped him amass a significant personal fortune.
Forbes estimated last year that Raiola’s personal wealth was in the region of £62m.
It was reported that Raiola earned £20million from the world record £89m sale of Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United in 2016.
