Departing AZ Alkmaar director Max Huiberts has detailed how he had a run in with legendary agent Mino Raiola, over Steven Berghuis’s move to Watford.
Voetbal Primeur cover comments from Huiberts today. He explained how he had ended up falling out with Raiola over the deal for Berghuis.
Berghuis joined Watford in a £4.6m deal in July 2015 after impressing with the Dutch side. His time at Vicarage Road proved to be a brief one, though, as he struggled to secure a regular first team place under Quique Sánchez Flores.
He would only go on to make 11 appearances for the club before being sent out on loan to Feyenoord in 2016. He then joined them on a permanent basis from Watford in 2017 and has since gone on to play for Ajax, joining them in 2021.
It’s more than fair to say his move to Watford was a complete disaster. And it seems there was drama behind the scenes as well.
The whole deal was dealt with by legendary agent Mino Raiola. And he was left less than impressed by the manner in which AZ Alkmaar did their business.
“I remember the first moment very well. He (Raiola, ed.) called and said: ‘That’s great, isn’t it, from Steven Berghuis?'” Huiberts said, then explaining that Raiola always took 10% of a deal.
“I said: That’s fine, but we have to agree on that beforehand. If we think you should get 10%, you’ll get it. But you didn’t agree to that. Now I’m not going to promise that. I can’t justify it. You should have told him. Mino said he always worked that way.
“I think he could have managed it at many clubs, but this came as a surprise afterward, and we didn’t discuss it. So, it made sense to me to tell him to forget it.
“He did arrange it; he made that transfer. Steven’s contract wasn’t done by Mino, because Berghuis had switched to Mino in the meantime. So, Mino wasn’t owed anything by AZ; that still went to his old agent. He didn’t earn anything from us, but I think he did from Watford. But then we said: let’s give him something to show we appreciate his work.
“We thought we’d offered something nice, but he didn’t like it at all. Yet he never brought it up again. He let it slide, and that’s Mino too. I thought that was quite a strong point: it’s either this is what I want, or not at all. That was my first encounter with him as an alternative.”
