tributes are paid to captain sir tom moore at his funeral. family members say his spirit will live on. the chancellor plans new measures to help people buy their own homes as he prepares his budget for next week. anas sarwar has been announced as the new scottish labour leader. he takes charge of the party ahead of the scottish parliament election on the 6th of may. ministers in england launch a campaign to reassure parents it's safe for children to return to the classroom. now on bbc news, mino raiola is the man behind some of football's biggest transfers. he has been speaking to dan roan about the issues affecting football and the important role that agents play. he's the man behind some of the biggest transfers in world football, an adviser to many of its top stars. so—called super—agent mino raiola is one of the most influential but divisive figures in the game. clients have included zlatan ibrahamovic, mario balotelli, paul pogba and romelu lukaku. but with the pandemic causing an unprecedented financial crisis in the sport, there's mounting scrutiny on the role of agents and the huge sums they can earn. in a rare interview, the dutch—italian deal—maker told me intermediaries like him are misunderstood. mino, does it bother you, does it anger you that the public perception of you and your colleagues, your agent rivals, is one of greed and excess and contributing to the problems that the game is facing? of course it bothers me. i would be lying if i said it didn't bother me. that was 25 years ago also. but i learned the only thing that is important for me is the people that really can judge me, and that is the people that i work with, work for, and really know what i'm doing day to day for them or not. how can you judge if i was a good agent for ibra? the only person who can judge that is ibrahamovic himself. in my case, if i'm talking personally, all my players are free to leave every day, they don't sign a document. so, if they want to stay with me, they're happy to stay. if they don't, i'm happy that they leave. it is not nice to hear always the same preconception. people talk about discrimination. we are discriminated against in football. but maybe the public can also think, if this man is so greedy and so bad or whatever i've been called, how the hell are his players all happy and stay with him? that's what my real test is, you know. they call you a parasite, that's how you've been described at times by people. my players don't call me a parasite. the only one that i work for is my players, nobody else. and parasites have a very important role in their lives, for their host. normally you have a big shark with a parasite under it, so i don't care what they call me. the only thing i care is what my players call me. we are living in a multi—billion society, people have to accept that. the salaries of the players has grown and with that, our commissions grew because it's a part of the players. and i'm happy for that because i never walked into a boardroom and the first meeting was the meeting of the outcome of the contract that we signed. so, probably something will be done. all these people who don't like me, if it was their son, would they like me to be their representative or somebody at the club? we talked about the money and the commission, the other area, i guess, is the power and influence that agents like you, the very top agents, have now. i don't have power and influence. i only have influence in what my players think, but that's an ongoing thing. what i try is to get the best deal done for my player. for many people, the issue of agents taking too much money out of football was encapsulated by what happened at old trafford in 2016, when manchester united signed their former player paul pogba from juventus for a then world—record transfer fee of £89 million. raiola masterminded the deal and reportedly pocketed an astonishing £41 million. more controversy came in december, when raiola suggested the french world cup winner was unhappy at old trafford, angering manager ole gunnar solskjaer and sparking a major backlash. when you spoke about paul last year, and united, the suggestion here was that it was destabilising for solskjaer and the club. ijust expressed an opinion. i didn't want to cause any problem. it was actually an opinion that was a very simple one. i don't think it destabilised anybody at the end because they had a fantastic run and they were even first for a period in the league. players like paul pogba or solskjaer, who wants everything in his life, does he really get destabilised by what mino raiola says? wow, if i had that power, fifa wouldn't exist any more, that's for sure! despite his success with players, the outspoken raiola's relationship with top managers has not been so smooth. a series of run—ins with alex ferguson, pep guardiola and jurgen klopp adding to his notoriety. the problem ifeel you have in england is, whenever i tell an opinion that i have, everybody in england goes berserk that i am the worst agent or the best. it doesn't matter, 50% loves you, 50% hates you. or 80% hate me, 20% love me, whatever. the clubs get so much stressed by the public and journalists, but i have learned not to talk so much about it, only during market. one man mino is happy to talk about is another of his star clients, young norwegian striker erling haaland, one of the hottest properties in the game. the prolific 20—year—old onlyjoined borussia dortmund just over a year ago, but is already being linked with another big—money move that could be highly lucrative for both player and agent. there's so much interest, how likely is it that in this summer coming, he will maybe come to the premier league? everybody is looking at erling as one of the potential future stars. it's so difficult to do what he does at his age at this level. he will be one of the future stars of the next decade because we see that stars like ibrahamovic, cristiano ronaldo and lionel messi are coming to an age where everybody asks themselves, how long can we still enjoy them? so everybody is looking for the new generation. it's obvious only maybe a maximum of ten clubs can afford to buy you and four of those clubs are in your beautiful country. you can fill them in, you can call them, say, would you be interested? i think there is not a sport director or a trainer in the world that would say, i would not be interested. having grown up working on his family's pizzeria business before moving into sport, raiola is now president of the football forum, an organisation which represents other top agents, such as gareth bale's adviserjonathan barnett and the man who has guided the careers ofjose mourinho and cristiano ronaldo, jorge mendes. i'm very proud to have put the four biggest agents of europe together. you know the argument that clubs are suffering unprecedented financial losses now because of the pandemic. is it not the responsibility of players to help, through controls like salary caps? i think that would be using the covid crisis as an alibi. i don't think that only the covid crisis of this moment is to blame about what's happening now. we should try to be more modern and sit down with all involved parties to see, where is it we can help each other? sit down and say to each other, where do we want this industry to go? what is important for this industry? if there are changes to be made, for sure there are changes to be made, and nobody is 100% right. it's notjust raiola's players that light up the premier league, of course. these signings, among a billion—pound spending spree last summer that defied losses caused by the pandemic, but for how much longer? regardless of a salary cap or not, do you think the crisis will mean that player wages have peaked and will start to come down now? i don't think that has a correlation with each other. i think for the extraordinary talents, there is always space. running a club is actually all by making choices of who you want in, that's your budget. and what is the single biggest change, mino, that you would like to see brought in? let's not relegate any more so that they can have a more stable environment to build out your reserves. because if you take out the premier league, some countries like france, spain and italy, it is a real financial disaster if you go down. one country where professional sport operates without promotion and relegation is the united states, and raiola believes american ownership is poised to dominate the european football landscape. i predict that, in five years' time max, the whole football industry is in american hands and that will bring a totally different view on how this industry will be run. the americans are ahead of everything and, in your country yourself, you see liverpool and manchester united, the crown jewels of the premier league, are already in the hands of americans. in italy, we already have four or five clubs going to do that. so, you are seeing that there is a total change of ownership, and with this total change of ownership will come a total change of mentality. but there are other changes on the horizon too. world governing body fifa is vowing to regulate agents later this year. intermediaries will have to declare the money they earn. their commissions will be capped and there will be a clampdown on conflicts of interest. agents are vehemently opposed. we are not talking to fifa any more and we will go to court if necessary. everybody is prepared to go to court, so i think there will be a court case. i have no problem being transparent, zero problem. none of my colleagues have a problem with being transparent. what we have a problem with is people who don't know how transfers work trying to make rules that are ridiculous. nobody looks at the interests of players in this ruling. what is it? where is the interest of players in changing the rules? let's attack the agents because they took too much money out of the game? too much money out of the game? the game changed from a million—dollar industry to a billion—dollar industry. we need to change the football world, but we want to be a part of that and want to be respected and want to be heard because ourjob is to represent the players and their interests. i'm not saying football is perfect or that we are perfect. by all means, nobody is perfect. but i'm saying that it cannot be regulated by fifa. fifa says it has the responsibility to bring in what it calls sensible regulation to protect the interests of players and the game more generally. are football's superagents about to be tackled? hello and welcome to sportsday, i'mjane dougall. unbeaten wales are the triple crown winners after an emphatic victory over england in a pulsating match at the principality. but the visitors are left asking questions over officiating and their discipline. italy look like wooden spoon contenders as ireland dominate with six tries in rome. and can anyone catch them? the league leaders manchester city could be running away with the title after another victory against west ham. wales are top of the six nations table after a convicing 40—24 win over england. the home side led throughout, taking advantage of poor discipline from england and some controvertial decisions from the french referee. wales lifted the triple crown, the prize for beating all of the other home nations. joe wilson was watching. to be king of cardiff, two candidates. jones, eddie, orjones, alun? their old adversaries. this penalty was taken brilliantly, josh adam scored. england were furious, said it was too quick. you adam scored. england were furious, said it was too quick.— said it was too quick. you got to cive us said it was too quick. you got to give us time! — said it was too quick. you got to give us time! please, _ said it was too quick. you got to give us time! please, please. i said it was too quick. you got to i give us time! please, please. the referee regretted _ give us time! please, please. the referee regretted nothing. - give us time! please, please. the i referee regretted nothing. williams picked up a loose ball to cross the line. try? well, had it been knocked forward onto the leg? no, said the officials, entry summit wasn't going to argue. england go a try of their own next, and at half—time, wales led by three. england it did actually levelled the scores at the second

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