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Nieuws
- 40 minutes ago
The most powerful woman in football thinks the transfer market needs to change
Martin Macdonald
- 4 Feb 2026 06:01 CST
- 9 min read
Nieuws
Rafaela Pimenta, described by some as the world's first female 'super agent' in football, believes the transfer market needs to change to hand the power back to players.
Previously a lawyer, Pimenta worked with the late Mino Raiola for 18 years and inherited his client list after his passing. At the moment, she has high-profile clients such as Erling Haaland, Arne Slot, Matthijs de Ligt, Marco Verratti, Santiago Gimenez and upcoming wonderkid Gilberto Mora through her Tatica agency, based in Monaco.
She was recently named in Forbes' '50 Over 50' list which celebrates women who have made a strong impact in culture and business over the previous year, and is the non-executive director of Women In Football.
In 2022, she was honoured at the Globe Soccer Awards for the 'Best Transfer Deal of the Year' when she oversaw Haaland's huge transfer to Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund and the sizeable salary he received in that deal.
Now a powerful player in the transfer market, she thinks it needs to change due to the power that clubs apparently hold over footballers.
"There needs to be a change," she told BBC Sport.
"There's too much power for clubs.
"Players are sometimes hostages of situations. I'm not fighting for chaos. We need the transfer system for the whole thing to work. But we need more balance.
"We are in a transfer window, and I can bet you, because I see it at the end of every window, somebody will cry. There's always a player crying because he could have gone, needed to go and a club said they want £1m more."
Even in this recent January transfer window, there have been a few examples of this. Aaron Anselmino was torn away from a positive stint at Dortmund by Chelsea, who subsequently sent him back out on loan to Strasbourg, after taking Mamadou Sarr away from his own loan with the French side.
There's also Dwight McNeil, who was packed and ready to go to Crystal Palace on Deadline Day only for the Eagles to pull the plug on the deal without informing Everton or the player himself.
"Football used to be more human," Pimenta continues.
"A football director or an owner would have a special relationship with the player. If a player went to them and said 'please, I need to go', they would find a solution.
"Today, football is becoming so much of a business that there is a risk that players become an asset on the balance sheet. An asset has no voice, no feelings, no human needs.
"The challenge is to find a balance between the asset and the human being."
The Brazilian believes that the market needs to move with the times as players are more commodified than ever before.
"In the past, if a player did media, it might be a monthly magazine, once," says Pimenta.
"Today you have media opportunities, digital opportunities, sponsors, investors, startups, everything you can imagine."
Breaking through the glass ceiling
Today, female executives at clubs and agents within the game are more commonplace, but Pimenta was around at a time when it was still almost completely dominated by men and so she had to navigate those dangerous waters to become successful.
"When I was doing this years ago, there were very few women in deciding positions," she explained.
"There was Marina [Granovskaia] at Chelsea but overall, you could count them on your fingers.
"What I would see were many women working in clubs doing lots of things that were decision-making but not being recognised.
"It was a sort of a corridor, and it would always be the same. Scouting, technical, secretary, decision-maker. You would walk past everybody and get to the last door. Behind the last door would be a man.
"We have come a long way from a first meeting I had with a sports director who said to me, 'you really exist, I thought you were a hooker from Brazil', to where we are today but many men still use gender to unbalance you.
"They might talk behind my back to make me feel I'm fragile or have less power."
Pimenta's message to women in football
The super agent wants other women in sport to start up for themselves like she did.
"With some people, it's so embedded in them that women are inferior to men or that women don't know football," Pimenta said.
"They want to be cute to you - and even when they are cute, they're prejudicial.
"I don't accept it. I'm not standing up for me anymore - people respect me enough. But there's other girls coming. I don't want them to have to go through what I've been through. If I can make it a bit easier for them, I will.
"I'm a teacher on Uefa agents' courses. Young women come to me and say, 'Do you have any advice?'. Yes. Don't take abuse. You don't have to sexualize yourself to be somebody in this industry."
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