{"text":[[{"start":14.18,"text":"“I don’t trade in the market, I am the market,” he once said. "},{"start":17.909,"text":"Mino Raiola, the Dutch-Italian football agent who has died aged 54, embodied the rise of the agent in the modern game. "}],[{"start":25.52,"text":"Born poor in southern Italy, he grew up in the Netherlands, where his workaholic immigrant parents built a chain of pizza restaurants. "},{"start":32.412,"text":"Raiola likened his family to the Corleones of the Godfather films, only without violence. "},{"start":37.504,"text":"His parents taught him a service ethic: their pizzerias were extensions of their home, every customer should be treated as family, and if you cleaned the restaurant toilets, people would come back. "}],[{"start":48.230000000000004,"text":"He took this ethic into football. "},{"start":50.672000000000004,"text":"He was a born trader, a millionaire aged 19 after buying and selling a McDonald’s in the small city of Haarlem, and he began using his language skills to move Dutch footballers to his parents’ homeland. "}],[{"start":61.89,"text":"In a football industry obsessed with appearances, he always dressed sloppily. "},{"start":66.369,"text":"“I am fat and small,” he once explained. "},{"start":69.149,"text":"“People underestimated me for a long time. "},{"start":71.867,"text":"They said, ‘He can’t even dress normally. "},{"start":74.59700000000001,"text":"That was my chance. ”"},{"start":76.139,"text":"His break came in 1996, when he discovered a Czech footballer, Pavel Nedved, shortly before the world did. "},{"start":83.157,"text":"The timing was impeccable. "},{"start":84.999,"text":"The European Court of Justice’s new Bosman ruling allowed out-of-contract players to move throughout the EU without transfer fees. "},{"start":91.754,"text":"Meanwhile, television money was flooding football. "},{"start":94.89699999999999,"text":"Players needed trusted advisers. "}],[{"start":98.09,"text":"Raiola prided himself on his small stable of clients, which allowed him to offer each warm personal service, as if they were restaurant customers. "},{"start":105.83200000000001,"text":"Former Dutch defender Rody Turpijn recalls hours of talking about life on a café terrace: “He felt almost like family. "},{"start":112.49900000000001,"text":"And he was always available. ”"}],[{"start":115.21000000000001,"text":"Some players rang Raiola twice a day, though when Mario Balotelli reported that his house was on fire, Raiola suggested he try the fire brigade. "},{"start":123.677,"text":"Raiola demonstrated his loyalty to players with public rants against their clubs and managers, especially against his favourite enemy, Pep Guardiola, currently manager of Manchester City. "}],[{"start":134.09,"text":"He urged his players to work like Nedved, who trained at his club as a kind of aperitif, and then trained harder in his garden. "},{"start":140.982,"text":"That was Raiola’s ethic: “Resting isn’t part of my profession. ”"}],[{"start":145.49,"text":"He understood that even the smallest transfer of a lower-division journeyman could change somebody’s life. "},{"start":150.95700000000002,"text":"Whereas other agents aimed to stay on good terms with clubs, Raiola was a hardball negotiator, happy to walk away from the table, or lie about his player’s current salary. "},{"start":160.062,"text":"Rather than celebrating deals, he usually left worrying that the club might have paid even more had he pushed it. "}],[{"start":166.57,"text":"Wary of his players’ propensity to blow their money, he urged them to invest only in “bricks”, ideally in Amsterdam, “the world’s cheapest capital city”. "}],[{"start":175.82,"text":"He considered himself the best agent, but not the best father. "},{"start":179.624,"text":"He estimated he spent 30 days a year at home in Monaco, and the rest visiting his beloved players. "},{"start":184.992,"text":"When his wife complained, “You have two official children and loads of unofficial ones,” he joked, “Which are the official ones? ”"}],[{"start":191.98,"text":"He criss-crossed Europe talking to club executives in seven languages, hearing their plans, foreseeing shifts in the transfer market. "},{"start":199.147,"text":"A decade ago, he realised early that Italian clubs were running out of money, while Paris Saint-Germain was headed for dominance. "},{"start":206.027,"text":"He pushed his client, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, to move from Milan to Paris. "},{"start":210.719,"text":"Ibrahimovic last week visited his “best friend” Raiola on his deathbed. "}],[{"start":215.82,"text":"Rather than wait for clubs to make offers, Raiola decided where his players should go, then made it happen. "},{"start":221.912,"text":"In 2016, he orchestrated Paul Pogba’s move from Juventus to Manchester United. "},{"start":227.304,"text":"The transfer fee of €105mn was a world record, and Raiola made an estimated €48mn, contriving to get paid by both clubs and Pogba — confounding his claim he only worked for his players. "}],[{"start":240.07,"text":"He then took advantage of United’s weak leadership to sell the club several more of his clients — something the club may now regret. "},{"start":246.93699999999998,"text":"He often attributed his success to the industry’s stupidity. "},{"start":250.254,"text":"“Other agents are even dumber than me,” he once joked. "}],[{"start":253.98,"text":"His ambitions included reforming football’s global authority, Fifa, by becoming its president; running Italy as an “enlightened dictator” (and splitting the country into North and South); switching career to mergers and acquisitions, and buying a football club. "},{"start":267.92199999999997,"text":"He said his purchase of Queens Park Rangers was scuppered only by the goal that won them promotion to the Premier League. "}],[{"start":274.78999999999996,"text":"In his final months he was negotiating football’s biggest transfer, the Norwegian Erling Braut Haaland’s move from Borussia Dortmund. "},{"start":282.05699999999996,"text":"Raiola played bidding clubs off against each other, planning his ultimate payday, though he claimed to care about money only as the scorecard of success. "}],[{"start":290.15999999999997,"text":"His death from pulmonary disease was prematurely announced twice, allowing him to read his first obituaries from his Milan hospital bed. "},{"start":297.62699999999995,"text":"On Friday, his Twitter account grumbled: “Current health status for the ones wondering: pissed off second time in 4 months they kill me. ”"},{"start":305.032,"text":"He leaves a wife, two sons, and the unfinished Haaland deal. "}],[{"start":308.86999999999995,"text":""}]],"url":"https://creatives.ftacademy.cn/album/69789-1651421868.mp3"}