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Topics: Mino Raiola
Daniel Marland
A post from Mino Raiola's Twitter account has slammed reports of his death.
Reports emerging from Italy on Thursday afternoon claimed the football agent had died after a battle with illness.
Jose Fortes Rodriguez, a close friend of Raiola, contradicted those reports and told NOS Sport: "He's in a bad position, but he's not dead."
A message has since appeared on the 54-year-old's Twitter which reads: "Current health status for the ones wondering: pi**ed off second time in 4 months they kill me. Seem also able to ressuscitate [sic]."
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Alberto Zangrillo, head of the Intensive Care Unit at San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, told Italian news agency ANSA: "I am outraged by phone calls from so-called journalists speculating on the life of a man who is fighting."
It's believed Raiola has been battling an unspecified illness for some time and his entourage said he underwent 'routine checks' at San Raffaele in January.
Raiola represents some of the biggest names in football, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Erling Haaland.
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He is said to be one of the most powerful agents in the sport.
Raiola was born in Italy in 1967 and moved to the Netherlands a year later with his parents.
He did play for HFC Haarlem's youth team but stopped at the age of 18 to take an administrator position.
It was after that he ventured into becoming an agent, beginning work at Sports Promotions in the early 90s.
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Raiola was involved in the transfers of a number of top Dutch players, including Dennis Bergkamp's move from Ajax to Inter Milan in 1993.
Serie A moves would become his bread and butter, with his first independent transfer taking future Ballon d'Or winner Pavel Nedved from Sparta Prague to Lazio in 1996.
Perhaps his most famous client is Pogba, given the World Cup winner's £89 million move from Juventus to Manchester United was once the most expensive transfer of all time.