Raiola Ratings, FPL gurus and €1m: What super agent’s family did next
The larger-than-life, occasionally combustible figure of football super-agent Mino Raiola couldn’t have appeared further from the world of number-crunching and algorithms.
The late transfer broker, whose clients included Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Erling Haaland, always seemed far more into pressing the flesh and pouring champagne than poring over data.
But one strand of the Raiola empire that forms his legacy is all about the spreadsheets. London-based Raiola Global Management, which was founded by Mino’s son Mario, has invested heavily in data expertise in order to service clients who include not only the separate family agency, Monaco-based Team Raiola, but also clubs, players and investors.
It was born out of a recognition that, following his passing in 2022, they could no longer rely solely on Mino Raiola’s legendary contacts book and powers of persuasion. And, says Mark Nervegna, chief executive of Raiola Global Management, the idea owes more to the Dutch-Italian wheeler-dealer than might be expected.
“I didn’t have the pleasure of meeting him directly, but from all the conversations that I had about who he was, he was probably the most traditional guy ever,” Nervegna tells City AM at the company’s office in Mayfair.
“But he was one of the first who had this vision of digitising everything, trying to use analytics. That was something that he had in mind when he said, ‘I’m tired of pen and paper’. It was ahead of his time. And in fact, I inherited something that he started building.”
He adds: “We want to differentiate and be ahead of the curve, because at one point I think everybody will start looking at this more, the more the data becomes more interesting. And I said, ‘Mino was Mino; we have to find a different way’.”
How Raiola matched Van de Ven and Tottenham
Raiola Global Management has invested €1m in building a data ecosystem and in-house CRM platform and hired leading data scientists, including the world No3 in Fantasy Premier League, to ensure it is at the cutting edge of the industry.
It has developed its own proprietary Raiola Rating for players, which it uses to identify emerging talents and produce accurate valuations, both current and projected, which are invaluable in both transfer trading and contract negotiations.
Through sophisticated data analysis, RGM can also identify which clubs are the best fit for a player – they successfully matched Micky van de Ven with Tottenham Hotspur and Ryan Gravenberch with Liverpool – and even which brands would be good commercial partners.
“Our philosophy was that we wanted to remove subjectivity and add a little bit more objectivity, both in support of the agents and the scouts, because they have that sense that they see in a player but if we merge it also with analytics, they can have a much more accurate assessment for that,” says Nervegna.
What was conceived as a way of supporting the agency business, which is run by Mino’s cousin Enzo Raiola and former player-turned-agent Jose Fortes Rodriguez and manages more than 100 players, has quickly turned into something bigger. Team Raiola is still RGM’s main client but the company has branched out into consulting for clubs.
Marrying industry knowledge and data
Its accurate valuation capabilities are also useful for would-be buyers of football clubs, who might otherwise have to rely on subjective assessments or unreliable resources such as the community-sourced platform Transfermarkt, and that is a growing revenue stream.
“In my previous role I was more on the buy side and I used to get these very generalistic pitches on what the valuation of a club is,” says Nervegna, who previously worked for a major international investor in sport, media and entertainment.
“We think we know the football side extremely well. So if we merge the industry knowledge with real data, you can have a much more realistic assessment of what the true valuation of a club is. We can do it for a consultancy, we can do it for private equity.”
Looking ahead, RGM’s approach could have applications in other sports. But for now, Mario is focused on growing his investment as the company looks to build on its consultancy work, so would be likely to rebuff any interest if investors began circling them too.
“You see now a lot of these private equities buying into agencies, so it’s quite interesting that this is happening, and they must have seen something in the agency business,” says Nervegna.
“From my understanding, what the family wants to do is keep everything in-house. It’s a family-run business. Everybody has to embrace the same values. If we start opening it up, potentially we have to embrace new cultures which, for now, I don’t think is the future.”