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FIFA Hand Poga and de Ligt Agent “Worldwide Ban” Leading Into the Summer Transfer Window

On Friday, May 10th, the FIFA Disciplinary Committee ruled to extend the ban imposed by the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) to all FIFA compliant countries. The decision comes just two days after the FIGC ruled that Carime “Mino” Raiola and Vincenzo Raiola violated the football governing bodies rules on how intermediaries can operate with FIGC athletes, but did not elaborate further.

While no explanation for the sanctions have come from official channels, last week the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta Dello Sport reported, that the decision came as a result of Raiola’s dealings in the ‘Scamacca case,’  where the transfer negotiations of teenager Gianluca Scamacca from Roma to PSV Eindhoven in 2015 were seen as unfair from Roma’s perspective.

As for Raiola, he responded to the ban by calling it “a sentence dominated by political willing, without taking into the right consideration of law” and “a sentence based on false grounds and lies,” according to Joe Wright of Goal.com.

While Raiola plans his appeal of the Italian Football Federation and subsequent FIFA sanctions, he leaves his clients in limbo during a pivotal time entering the transfer window. The transfer window, which opens May 16th for English clubs, and June 1st for Spanish, French and German teams allows for the negotiations of players between clubs and intermediaries. For client Paul Poga, currently at Manchester United, his desired move to the Spanish giants Real Madrid have come to a temporary halt. Reported by the Daily Record, those negotiations, sans Raiola, aren’t going as smoothly as once thought. Saying Poga, who is representing himself in those transfer talks, had his staggering £13million-a-year offer rejected by the Madrid board. As of today, Pogba has not dropped Raiola as his agent, and there have no signs that one of his other major clients, Matthijs de Ligt intends to either.

The 19-year-old Dutchman looks likely to follow Poga’s path away from Manchester United, where he was previously rumored to be heading, for La Liga rival Barcelona. Like Pogba, it seems that de Ligt will represent himself in transfer talks going forward.

With the sanctions against Raiola running from May 9th to August 9th, 2019. He and his clients will likely be excluded from any moves to English clubs, whose transfer deadline ends the same day his sanctions are lifted. However, he will be eligible to represent any clients looking at Spanish, French or German clubs, since their 12-week transfer period ends August 31st. For his clients, they still have the option to seek new representation, retain Raiola and represent themselves during transfer negotiations, or wait till their intermediary is cleared to join the formal discussion.  

The Italian Football Federation is yet to respond to my request for clarification on the grounds of the Raiola Sanctions.