Super-agent Mino Raiola insists he is not dead: 'Second time in four months they kill me'

Mino Raiola, the high-profile football agent, has been forced to debunk "fake news" that he is dead due to misinformation spreading on social media after he fell ill.

Friends of the agent for Paul Pogba, Erling Haaland and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have said subsequently that he is "very, very ill". However, inaccurate reports in Italy that he had died prompted Raiola himself to issue a clarification.

"Current health status for the ones wondering: p****d off," Raiola said on his own Twitter channel. "Second time in 4 months they kill me. Seem also able to ressuscitate [sic]."

A friend of Raiola who has been in contact with his family also told Telegraph Sport: "He is alive but very very ill. Disgusting whoever put that out."

Alberto Zangrillo, head of the anaesthesia and intensive care unit of San Raffaele hospital in Milan, hit out at "pseudo journalists" over the mistake for the false claims, which he said were speculating "on the life of a man who is fighting". Another associate, Jose Fortes Rodriguez, told Holland's NOS website: "He is in a bad position, but he hasn't died." Another member of Raiola's team told Associated Press that reports of his death were "fake news".

Raiola rose to prominence in Italian football in the 1990s, having negotiated Pavel Nedved's move from Sparta Prague to Lazio. By the turn of the century, he was signing up Ibrahimovic, then at Ajax, and making his way to becoming one of the biggest and best-paid agents on the planet. Pogba, Haaland, Matthjis de Ligt and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are also in his stable.

In August 2016, he negotiated the £89 million world record transfer of Pogba to Manchester United - and reportedly pocketed £20m from the deal. In 2019, he was victorious in Italy's Federal Court of Appeal after Fifa's Disciplinary Committee ratified a three-month ban from the Italian Football Federation due to "undisclosed reasons".

Raiola has previously commented on being hospitalised in January and underwent very delicate surgery but the nature of the illness was not revealed.