It’s one of the more unsavoury sides of football, but agents hawking around their clients to all and sundry is nothing new.
Where Erling Haaland and Mino Raiola are concerned, one can only imagine the sycophantic depths various club chairmen and presidents will have stooped to when the agent did his whistle-stop tour of European football’s biggest clubs last summer.
Raiola and Alf-Inge Haaland, the player’s father, were, evidently, sounded them out to see just who would offer him the best pathway to success and, perhaps more importantly, who would readily accede to the 21-year-old’s incredible wage demands.
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According to Gazzetta dello Sport and cited by the Mirror, Raiola is asking for a basic salary of £43m a year.
That’s not far off almost £1m per week without bonuses included, which would arguably push Haaland’s weekly wage to that incredible figure.
No clubs have ruled themselves out of the race as yet, but the Mirror note that PSG are now throwing their hats into the ring.
As Nasser Al-Khelaifi has already shown with the capture of Lionel Messi and other star names, money appears no object for the Ligue Un giants, who are likely to need a high-quality replacement for Kylian Mbappe.