Mino Raiola: Infantino wants football to 'go back to North K

7:00am on Monday 30th November 2020
By Stefan Bienkowski

Mino Raiola, the controversial Super-Agent who has a stable of some of the world's best players, has claimed that FIFA will no longer exist in 10 years in its current form.

Raiola is one of a number of his-profile representatives that are facing up to FIFA head on over the debate around the level of commission agents are allowed to receive.

The 53-year old and his colleagues may see their commissions capped at 3% of a player transfer fee or their salary across the length of the contract.

Therefore his opinion on FIFA as an organisation perhaps isn't the most objective, but he feels that the governing body may cease to be in the very near future.

Speaking at the World Football Summit, Raiola, who can lay claim to being one of the most high-profile agents in the sport with clients such as Paul Pogba and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, said: "FIFA is 50 years behind.

"FIFA in 10 years, you can write it down, won't exist anymore. The golf association doesn't have a FIFA and golf is being played in the whole world. Tennis is changing. Formula 1 is changing. There is a problem with FIFA: they divide jobs, they divide money and that's how they keep everyone happy.

"MLS created, 20 years ago, a new system. MLS 20 years ago said we have nothing to do with FIFA. Nothing.

“FIFA said that MLS was something ridiculous. You know what they did? FBI arrested half of FIFA and they gave them the World [Cup]."

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While Raiola was complimentary of the United States top-flight as an alternative model to most FIFA-run competitions, the agent also took a moment to criticise one of the characteristics that makes MLS so unique in world football: a salary cap.

"How can you cap a talent?” stated Raiola. “How can you cap a talent if tomorrow [Diego] Maradona walks in and you say 'I need you, I want you to play for my audience,' that should be a salary cap?

"We are living in a capitalist world, where we do everything in a capitalist way, but Gianni Infantino wants to go back to North Korea. I have no problem with North Korea, but go live in North Korea and not in Switzerland."