Ramadani: the newest super agent behind Jovic deal
Jovic's agent is the co-founder of Lian Sports and has several high profile clients including Pjanic and Koulibaly as Real Madrid look to renovate their squad.
Real Madrid's signing of Luka Jovic introduces us to a new agent and one little-known prior to the deal: Fali Ramadani. In the last few months, the Albanian agent, has visited the offices of Real Madrid a number of times in an effort to solve the futures of his various clients. On the table during discussions with José Ángel Sánchez were Miralem Pjanic and Kalidou Koulibaly, two of his better known clients.
On Friday, As reported that Jovic will sign with Real Madrid for six seasons for €60 million with €42 million of that going to Eintracht Frankfurt, €9 million going to his parent club, Benfica and the other €9 million going to the author of the deal, Ramadani.
Ramadani's Lian Sports a behemoth in sporting world
Born in 1963 in Albania, he lives in Berlin where he directs Lian Sports, which he founded alongside Nicola Damjanac. According to The Economist, Lian Sports is the 12th most important agency in the world with the fifth most valuable of those dedicated solely to football. They have accumulated €49 million in agents fees and have negotiated almost €500 million worth of contracts. They are keen to remain out of the spotlight and always in the shadow, Ramadani focuses on Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Monenegrin talent and has worked mostly with Serie A. In recent years he has been closely linked with moves to Fiorentina including the Jovetic, Ljajic, Nastasic, Seferovic and Behrami deals.
The name of the agent started to be heard in Spain last summer when Pjanic's name came up. The Bosnian was one of the midfielders linked with a move to Barcelona to replace Rakitic. In the end, that move never came to pass but now Ramadani is a man we might be hearing more of as Real Madrid look to renovate their squad. Pjanic remains an option if Eriksen or Pogba don't work out and another name on the table is Koulibaly is Raphael Varane decides to leave, which was a strong possibility before the return of Zidane.
Along with those players, Lian Sports also represent Marcos Alonso (Chelsea), Ivan Perisic (Inter), Ante Rebic (Eintracht), Cengiz Ünder (Roma), Maksimovic (Napoli), Nikola Kalinic (Atlético), Stevan Jovetic (Mónaco) and Samir Handanovic (Inter).