On a day Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappe are linked with Barcelona, leave it to one of the players’ agents to publicly dig into one of their futures.
Mino Raiola, usually such a tender wallflower, is spreading his social wings and opening a door into his mind, one that is so often closed to the world.
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Raiola says that there are only 10 clubs in the world that both represent an upgrade in platform for Haaland and can sign him, and that several are in the Premier League.
“Only 10 clubs can afford to sign Haaland and give him the setting that he would like to be in after Dortmund. Four of those clubs are in England.”
…
“I don’t believe that there is a single sporting director or coach in the world who would say: ‘I am not interested.’ It is like asking yourself whether any Formula 1 team would be interested in having Lewis Hamilton.”
Awesome to see Mino come out of his shell.
So anyone want to guess who are the 10 clubs overall and which four PL clubs fit Raiola’s description? Presumably they are all in the big six: Arsenal, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Tottenham.
We’re going to remove the latter not because of reputation or money or even this season but because their wage structure is below that of the others. Chelsea and both Manchester clubs are undoubtedly on the list given their general transfer outlays and Raiola’s clientele so… is his fourth Liverpool or Arsenal?
Not that he’s being scientific here, but we think most would imagine Liverpool. They’ve spent a ton in recent years even if much was offset by sales of Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho, but net spend is really tricky and Liverpool’s wage bill is sixth of the six (United, Arsenal, and Chelsea are 1-2-3, with United far and away the top figure). So we’ll go for Arsenal here.
So those four plus Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris Saint-Germain. That gives us three more clubs between Serie A and the Bundesliga. Bayern Munich is one for sure. Juventus, too. So Inter Milan? AC Milan? Are we missing someone?
What do you think?
