Mino Raiola
| Mino Raiola | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Carmine Raiola 4 November 1967 Nocera Inferiore, Italy |
| Nationality |
Italian Dutch |
| Occupation | Football agent |
Carmine "Mino" Raiola [ˈmino ˈrajola]; born 4 November 1967) is an Italian-born Dutch football agent representing a number of well known players, including Zlatan Ibrahimović, Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Marco Verratti, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Italian striker Mario Balotelli. He was also the agent of former Czech midfielder Pavel Nedvěd for many years.
Raiola was born in 1967 in Nocera Inferiore, Salerno, in southern Italy. He moved to the Dutch city of Haarlem a year later with his parents. Growing up in the Netherlands, his father opened a successful restaurant business where Raiola spent his younger years working as a waiter. At the same time, he obtained his high school diploma and attended University for two years, enrolling in the Faculty of Law. He speaks seven languages: Italian, English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Dutch.
He started playing football for the youth team of HFC Haarlem, but stopped at age 18 in 1987 to become head of the youth of the team. After a brief venture as a player and administrator, Raiola remained involved in the football world, this time as a football agent. He began working at Sports Promotions, a sports agent company, and assisted in the transfers of several high-profile Dutch players to Italian clubs, including Ajax player Bryan Roy (in 1992 to Foggia), Marciano Vink (in 1993 to Genoa), Wim Jonk and Dennis Bergkamp (both in 1993 to Internazionale) and Michel Kreek (in 1994 to Padua). After a while, however, he decided to leave the company and start his own business. His first independent big transfer was Pavel Nedvěd's signing from Sparta Prague for Lazio following his impressive performance at UEFA Euro 1996, where Nedvěd's Czech Republic reached the tournament final.
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