What will happen to the football empire of Mino Raiola, without its emperor? It is a question that has been afloat for several months since it has been known since December that the Italo-Dutch agent was seriously ill.Unlike other agents of his caliber who created scouting agencies to work and function without them, Raiola was a “one-man show,” just as his Monte Carlo-based agency, “One,” was called.Mino relied on very few people and entrusted others only with technical-legal-organizational affairs. He held all the negotiations and contacts alone, with the exception of the Italian football players for whom his cousin Vincenzo was in charge.Sat 16:30: (1.55) Dortmund (4.30) Hertha (5.80)In the “stable” of the late football agent with a FIFA license, there are over 30 top football players, from the oldest Zlatan Ibrahimovic to the future great star of European and world football, Erling Haaland.In 2020, Mino’s agency invoiced close to 850 million dollars through player transfers, of which 85 million euros remained to Raiola in commissions.Raiola consciously created an organization in which he was a kind of managerial Louis XIV: The agency is me. The only partner, and partner whom Mino considered equal, was Rafaela Pimienta.The Brazilian lawyer has been a kind of right-hand ‘man’ of the Italo-Dutch manager for almost 20 years. The two met at the beginning of the century at an event organized by Rivaldo and Cesar Sampaio. Pimienta helped two football players launch a project, Raiola immediately sensed the talent and quality of the Brazilian’s work and tied her to himself.Império agora brasileiro: a advogada Rafaela Pimenta, sócia de Mino Raiola, tem uma galáxia de jogadores importantes com carreiras a administrar. Os dois filhos do empresário ainda estudam, e o primo Vincenzo, que já cuidava dos jogadores italianos, será peça importante no grupo. pic.twitter.com/anFscHt6xr— Leonardo Bertozzi (@lbertozzi) May 3, 2022 For the past few months, while Mino has been battling a vicious disease, Pimienta has led the agency and the most important negotiations, especially when it comes to the transfer of Erling Haaland to Manchester City.At the headquarters of the “One” agency in the Principality of Monaco, in addition to Pimienta, there are only four or five people who are in charge of logistics and who deal with public relations, and take care of the needs of football players, travel and logistics.Raiola and Pimienta’s strategy was to have a small and selected team under direct control and a horizontally organized group of occasional associates in the required areas. For example, Raiola and Pimienta had a rule that in every country where they work, they have trusted lawyers that they would hire on a case-by-case basis. Their philosophy did not allow the legal part of the player’s contract to go to the Bundesliga to be done by lawyers from Italy or France, but exclusively from Germany and vice versa.Associates from the managerial world, propaganda or social networks are organized according to the same principle. None of them was in a permanent business relationship with Raiola’s agency, but they were hired to complete a certain job, if necessary.Manchester City confirm: Erling Haaland is one of us!Pimienta, like Raiola, is a polyglot and speaks six languages, and she was the only one who could appear in the key phases of negotiations on behalf of Raiola and the agency. It is said that she played the most important role in the transfer of Pogba from Juve to Manchester United.Also, the idea of founding the international association of football managers “Football Forum” is Pimienta’s idea, and she was the vice president of that organization chaired by Raiola.One of Raiola’s qualities was to keep his immediate family, wife and sons Mario and Gabriele away from the spotlight of the media stage. He knew how to be very unpleasant even to the most innocuous questions related to his family.Raiola’s sons have just entered the third decade of life, they are still students and have no experience in managerial work, so there is no doubt that Pimienta will play the most important role, among other things because she is the only full ‘partner’ of Raiola’s heirs in the “One” agency.Pimienta has been the perfect partner from the background all these years. With her competence in the field of law and her ability to maintain institutional relations in which Raiola did not cope, she proved to be, figuratively speaking, Scotty Pipen for Michael Jordan.How will Raiola’s departure affect the transfers of stars he represented?The secret of Raiola’s success was that he literally turned, in his own way, of course, Jerry Maguire’s manifesto (the famous film with Tom Cruise in the title role) into reality. His relationship with the footballers was so close that he erased all the usual boundaries between agents and clients.Pimienta does not have the kind of charisma and refinement to replace Raiola. In other words, if the footballers decide to remain clients of the “One” agency, then that commitment will be based on completely different grounds.Raiola’s children, Mario and Gabriele, are too young and inexperienced to be able to swim in managerial waters full of “sharks” in which they would be torn apart in a very short time.The speed with which the disease took Raiola to the afterlife, as well as the very successful keeping of secrets about the seriousness and scale of Raiola’s health problems, contributed to the agency looking much more solid than it could have been assumed.However, the time of grief, piety and politically correct behavior of other managers and agencies will not last long. The winning formula for Raiola’s business jewel to outlive its ancestor and become a brand is for an equally charismatic and unusual person, like Raiola, to come to her forefront.It is not difficult to guess that Zlatan Ibrahimović is the only person who could replace, or rather, try to take over the role of Raiola. However, Ibra, it seems, wants to play at least one more season and in a year it may be too late to save Mino’s empire.Is this the end? Zlatan can play for only ten minutes a game, you can see him only in tactical trainingThere are already rumors circulating in management circles that agencies such as Stellar Sports (Grealish, Camavinga, Szczęsny), CAA Base (Varane, Bremer, Son…), Unique Sports (James Rodriguez, Calhanoglu…) Roof (Mane, Havertz, Gnabry…) or Jorge Mendes’ GestiFute could take over all or a portion of Raiola’s players.It is not difficult to imagine that many of Raiola’s ‘opponents’ start drewling when they think of Haaland, De Ligt, Donnarumma, Pogba, Gravenberch and several dozen other football players.Rafaela Pimienta is more educated, smarter, more skilled and more capable than her late partner, but she lacks one thing and that is one that cannot be learned, perfected or built: she is not Mino Raiola. As great as Pimienta is, there are hundreds and thousands of people on the planet of her qualities – Mino was unique.Raiola’s empire is a victim of the success of its creator and the way it was run. History is full of personalities who were great in everything except programming the time after them and creating successors capable of continuing their work.RAIOLA’S CLIENTSPLAYER – AGE – CLUB – VALUE (MILLION EUROS)HAALAND – 21 – BORUSSIA D. – 150DE LIGT – 22 – JUVENTUS – 100DONNARUMMA – 23 – PSG – 80POGBA – 29 – MANCHESTER UTD – 65VERATTI – 29 – PSG – 60DE VRIJ – 30 – INTER – 30GRAVENBERCH – 19 – AJAX – 30LOZANO – 26 – NAPOLI – 30KEAN – 22 – JUVENTUS – 30MALEN – 23 – BORUSSIA D. – 30DUMFRIES – 26 – INTER – 25ROMAGNOLI – 27 – MILAN – 20MAZRAOUI – 24 – AJAX – 20PINAMONTI – 22 – INTER – 20STENGS – 23 – NICA – 15BOADU – 21 – MONACO – 15KLUIVERT – 22 – NICE – 15MKHITARYAN – 33 – ROMA – 15BAKKER – 21 – BAYER L. – 15L.PELEGRINI – 23 – JUVENTUS – 10There are also Ibrahimović, Balotelli, Areola, Manolas, Bonaventura and others
