Mino Railo reveals how he set up the world record deal of $100M for Paul Pogba as his agent (Photos)

You need to have big balls to complete a world record transfer and Jose Mourinho has those balls...

Mino Raiola is telling it straight, as he likes to. ‘It’s not just a case of spending the money,’ he insists. ‘It’s shouldering the responsibility of spending that money and saying, “yes, this is my man’’. Arsenal have the money but do they have the balls?

‘I respect Arsene Wenger. He has a philosophy that says these figures don’t match what I want to do, so that’s OK. Real Madrid? The will of Zinedine Zidane was strong but we were not sure it was the will of the club.

'Yet I think Manchester United showed the world this summer that they were not going to stand still, they want to be the best.

‘They sent out a message with the transfers they did that this is the biggest club in the world.’

Raiola is in a T-shirt and jogging pants, standing barefoot on the balcony of a towering new apartment block overlooking Chelsea Harbour. His teenage son is sharing the view

We are discussing his busy summer as agent to some of the biggest names in football. This is the man who brokered the world record £89million transfer of Paul Pogba to Manchester United and boasts a client list that includes Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mario Balotelli, Romelu Lukaku and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

He made more than £30m from deals this summer (including about £20m from the Pogba transfer), his players are wanted by the world’s biggest clubs, so what gave Manchester United and executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward the edge?

‘I always say to my players we go where we are needed. United will always be one of the biggest clubs in the world whether by reputation or balance sheet.

'Yes, Manchester United had no Champions League and weren’t champions but they needed us the most.

‘United had been talking to us for two years about Pogba,’ confides Raiola.

‘They had taken my player Sergio Romero and we had kept the lines of communication open.

‘We knew we had interest, we spoke to Juventus, they really wanted to try for the Champions League, they gave him the No 10 shirt and we said we would give it one more year.

'Then I worked on an exit plan. We had two offers from the Premier League and two outside.

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