Mino Raiola would have got Henrikh Mkhitaryan pay-out whether he had signed for Manchester United or not
The 'super-agent' will have collected a total of £41m from Paul Pogba's transfer alone
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Your support makes all the difference.The super-agent Mino Raiola negotiated a deal for himself which would earn him millions of pounds if Manchester United’s bid for his client Henrikh Mkhitaryan was rejected last summer – as well a huge sum if he left for Old Trafford, leaked documents have revealed.
A new book by two Der Spiegel journalists who worked on Football Leaks – the sport’s version of Wikileaks – had laid bare the extraordinary earning power of Raiola, who collected £41m for the world record £89m deal which took Paul Pogba back to Old Trafford last summer. That included a near £23m cut of the transfer fee and five instalments totalling £16.39m from United over the course of his five-year contract until 2020.
But other Football Leaks documents reveal how Borussia Dortmund’s desperate need for connections to the elite players who are in Raiola’s client base left them in a weak negotiating position when United bid for Armenian Mkhitaryan, who joined for a fee of £26.3m.
A three-page amendment to Raiola’s contract with Dortmund, dated March 1, 2014 and published by Football Leaks, stated that not only would the agent receive a cut of the transfer fee if Mkhitaryan was sold, he would also pocket a pay-out if the player was not sold. Dortmund would have been liable to pay Raiola millions of euros if they had rejected United’s offer.
The book - Football Leaks: the Dirty Business of Football – also reveals the Manchester United earning power of Raiola players Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Pogba. It claims, through detailed documentation, that Ibrahimovic commands £367,640-per-week ‘basic’ at Old Trafford, rising to £422,500 when the £2.86m bonus he receives for scoring 28 goals in his first Premier League season.
Pogba receives a more modest £165,000-a-week ‘basic’ but the incentives built into his 41-page contract reveal the motivation for him to help United qualify for the Champions League, by winning the Europa League.
The Frenchman’s basic wage would rise by £1.875m a year and his commercial rights would go up from £2.87m to £3.125m if United are in the elite European competition. The midfielder is also due a loyalty bonus from next season, which starts at just under £3.5m.
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