On the evening of April 30, Beijing time, the famous football agent Laiola passed away.
Some people are alive, he's dead.
After being "killed" twice in four months, 54-year-old Dutch Italian football agent Mino Raioola finally failed to escape the call of death. Although news of Raiola's severe lung disease has been widely reported in the media since the beginning of the year, no one expected death to come so suddenly - although in the minds of many footballers and fans represented by Sir Alex Ferguson, this fat man who looks cute and harmless has long died socially.
Refined egoism
The Raiola family's social media posts.
Laiola's hatred is no longer news. United fans hated him to the bone because he defected with Pogba in his early years, turning a brilliant seedling that could have become Ferguson's legacy into a mercenary mercenary. During the years of the Red Devils' rebuilding, he earned a lot of commissions, but none of the Ibrahimovic, Lukaku, Jesse Lingard and Pogba he brought with him became the club's heroes; Milan fans had a longer grudge with him, and before Donnaruma Jr., he had many difficulties in the renewal of the contracts of players such as Abate and Bonaventura. Since then, he has repeatedly lured Don Jr. to pay a high salary, and he did not hesitate to join Juve as a threat, which touched milan's scales; Manchester City fans were happy to see him let go, because he scolded Guardiola for Ibrahimovic, and Guardiola said that he would never use his players. Now that Rayola has taken the lead, Haaland has one less obstacle to join Manchester City.
Mercenary and undisguised became the most direct reason why people hated Raiola. Traditional practitioners such as Ferguson have an ideal complex for the sport of football: players can pursue interests, but they cannot only see interests, but must have basic work ethics and pursuits. Without such spiritual sculptures, it is difficult to achieve the peak of the profession by only using playing football as a means of making a living and a tool to make money.
Ferguson was right, but Raiola didn't care about it. In the eyes of stakeholders, football is a means of livelihood, and player trading is investing in business. The player's career is short, do not take advantage of the young to make a strong catch, and even the basic quality of life can not be guaranteed when they are old. Gad Muller has been at the top of his life, breaking countless records, or is he still living in poverty thanks to Bayern?
Rotating Pogba between Juve and Manchester United and earning large commissions is La'iola's most successful deal in recent years.
After all, the players who can stand to the top (or intentionally stand at the top) are a minority, and most players think that football is a life-pleasing skill, which is the reason why agents like Rayola make the players feel kind and trusted. Oscar's move from Chelsea to Shanghai at his peak was in an uproar, but no one can accuse him of having the right motivation to pursue a well-paid family. As for how high their careers can go, many players do not reach the status of thinking about this.
Laiola thus had a market. Unlike another well-known agent, Mendes, who always wears a suit, leather, is polite, and looks like a business elite, the big-bellied Laiola never hides her rude, urban side. He can hook up with Ibrahimovic and put his back to the camera with his middle finger, he can scold Klopp who abandoned Balotelli as a piece of, he can shamelessly ask Pogba for a high salary, throw a wink at other teams, and scold Manchester United in the face of the media: Give them Maradona they can also use waste, I don't do business with them. "If you were Pogba, wouldn't you be touched to see Raiola go so hard for herself?"
Bringing Nedved to Juve was an important part of Laiola's opening of zebra business. The Czech went from Mr. Golden Globe to Juve executive under him, laying an important foundation for his long-term cooperation with Juve.
What's more, from the perspective of the players themselves, Laiola really let them earn more. Not Raiola, the young De Ligt could not have received a high salary of 7 million, not to mention the fame of Pogba, returning to Manchester United career to win no matter how much, compared to the salary manchester United offered him, he has already got enough.
Laiola was hated because he broke the economic antagonism between the players and the club, and became the first agent to blatantly ask for the player's salary after the Bosman Act. He does not understand the meaning of the agent as a middleman and a peacemaker to win more clubs for himself, but completely positions himself as a player on the side of the player, desperately squeezing and squeezing the space of the club. How could such a refined egoist possibly attract the love of the club? Legend has it that the source of the conflict between Florentino and Zidane in charge of the first period is that Lafayette firmly disagreed with the compromise of Pogba's lions. Of course, the final result had little effect on Raiola, because he got the result he wanted: United compromised with him.
The end of Raiola's stereotyping?
In the early years, he mediated the connections accumulated among a group of big men, which laid a solid foundation for Laiola's business development.
People say that Raiola changed world football. Indeed, it is a pity that the negative effects far outweigh the positives.
In December 2021, FIFA released the International Transfer Broker Report, which shows that the broker commission generated by the world club transfer for the whole year reached more than 500 million US dollars, ironically the total cost of international transfers is decreasing. This means that agents as third-party agents have instead become the biggest beneficiaries of the international football transfer market, and such data is obviously unreasonable at a time when the world's football economy is turning into a depression.
Clauses limiting agents' commissions were then introduced: either 10 percent of the transfer fee or 5 percent of the total contract for players' salaries, and a draw from buyers, sellers and players, as in the case of Rayola, is no longer allowed.
According to the original plan, this clause will be used after the official opening of the summer window this year, which is considered to be a thunderous means for FIFA to sanction high-commission agents led by Rayola. The news of Haaland's transfer to Manchester City has been widely reported in the media since May, and it may be that Rayola is softly fighting against this provision: the implementation of the plan you said in July, and the contract I finalized in April, can not be regarded as a violation, right?
Unfortunately, such a confrontation could no longer take place with the departure of Raiola. For FIFA, this may be good news: the people who passively shared the biggest cake are gone, and the resistance to reform will be reduced as a result.
Despite being denounced as a "vampire", Raiola has a close relationship with many players. In the last moments of his life, Ibrahimovic was by his side.
In the world football world, which is disturbed by high commissions and bubble economies, Laiola's departure will also mean that the model he is following has begun to come to an end. In fact, long before Laiola became seriously ill, his brokerage model by means of harming the interests of the club had hit a bottleneck: Gary Neville openly called on the club to block it, Milan intentionally or unintentionally went farther and farther on the road of "retiring Laiola", the market's cold reception and wait-and-see for high-paid players, so that Pogba actually did not have much choice to choose from, and the space and chips that Laiola could operate were changing with the changes of the times. It just didn't occur to anyone that he would leave the game early before the end of his time.
For Laiola, in the last moments of his life, the gains he earned in football and the reputation he left behind are no longer important. Importantly, Ibrahimovic, who had been with him, sent him on his final journey, and Haaland, who has always been regarded as the representative of the future center of football, sent him off with a sentence of "you are the best".
Some people are dead, he is still alive.