Rudi Vata was his own son’s football agent offering all of the advice and experience from his playing days, until there was an emergency. Vata captained his nation and spent four seasons as a defender at Celtic. Now, his son Rocco is following in his footsteps.
What does it take to be a football agent and a father?
Firstly, I’m a dad and then an agent. Both of those roles mix well together as it’s my job to know what’s going on in Rocco’s life, whether that’s football or just daily life.
A football agent is someone that should be an honest guy and able to give you the most professional advice, which I can do as I went through the same stages as a young boy that Rocco is going through.
It’s very important for any player to have a good relationship with their agent because it is someone who you should trust and believe one hundred percent.
What advice have you given to your son around mentality?
Mentality varies depending on what league and country you’re playing at.
From my experience, I’ve found that you need to build up a certain mentality of resilience if your dream is to be a Champions League player, and you can only get there by building up a Champions League mentality through training.
That’s why there’s a difference between the Champions League and the Europa Conference.
It’s slightly different everywhere you go, such as in Germany you need to understand the discipline and how well organised everyone is in this country.
The most successful people are the people who have that kind of discipline in life. There’s not much that separates players who are good and very good nowadays, but it’s discipline that makes the difference.
Do you ever watch Rocco play?
To be honest, I never go and watch him and I will when he makes it to the top level one day.
I don’t need to watch him play to understand and know exactly what is going on in his daily routine. I understand. I sense everything, and I can see that most of the things he’s doing are right.
He put in the work a lot, but he has to keep maintaining that standard and he even has to do extra. I tell him now you need to work smart.
You need to take free kicks and practice thousands of free kicks a week, because one free kick you can win a game for your team, and maybe a Champions League trophy.
At this moment, I’m happy enough, but I am not happy enough at the same time because there’s still a long way for him to go.
Are you proud of your son?
I tell Rocco that you have to first of all become a good human being, this is very important. Then you need to become a good professional football player as that’s the job you choose to do. So, I am proud when he’s doing extra work all the time.
When he scores a goal, I think it’s normal. That’s what he’s getting paid to do, and we all have to do work.
The better you do it, the better you become of course, but if you don’t score a goal, it’s a problem for a striker.
Winning with hard work. It’s the best feeling in life, so I’m proud to see him win and it brings me joy.
The Communist dictatorship in Albania impacted Rudi’s mentality.
As a young boy in Albania, I didn’t have freedom. It was a dream that one day you can play for Manchester United or Chelsea, Bayern Munich, or Real Madrid because it wasn’t allowed for me as a child. We had no Freedom.
We were isolated completely, and my only dream was to become a national team player.
I’ve got so much ambition as a person. I had that ambition. I always wanted to go to the top and my dream of that, and captain of my national team came true.
I’ve told the same thing to Rocco, and he has been born with freedom.
When you’re young and starting a career in football, you have to see that there’s a real passion there and Rocco’s always had that and now he needs to focus on the talent too.
But he’s always had the right mentality to always want to get better and work harder every day, and that’s the reason he’s made so much progress and developed so well.
I told him you need to go to bed with a dream and wake up in the morning with a plan.
‘I could no longer be my son’s agent when my father died’…
Up until last year I was Rocco’s agent but had to put that to the side when I heard that my father wasn’t well and was dying.
So, I needed to fly over to Albania to support the family and my mother which meant that I couldn’t be there for Rocco as much.
At the time, it was a really important stage for Rocco and there was also a lot going on where he needed a football agent by his side. So we looked at the options and decided it was best for his agent to be someone else that could be there.
For me, I found it hard to trust another man and agent with my son after some of the bad experiences that I had as a player, but it’s all been working out so far.
As a father you want to protect the baby.
What was that bad experience with an agent?
When you are young, you don’t understand what an agent is, and that could be someone who doesn’t really have your best interests at heart.
This is something that I experienced in ‘96 when I left Celtic, Olympic Marseille wanted me and my agent told me that AK Athens also want you.
I wanted to go and play for Marseille because Irish International, Tony Cascarino was there and we both played for Celtic.
My agent said that I would get the best opportunity and game-time at Athens which convinced me to go there.
I stayed in Athens for two weeks hoping to sign the deal and on the last day of the transfer window, he said that we need to go and sign with Apollon Limassol.
Unfortunately, I was stuck with that agent by a contract and the whole transfer went against my wishes and because of this, I ended up in Limassol for two seasons.
That’s the bad work that some agents can do.
What’s some advice that you would give young players hoping to make it professional one day?
My belief is to do an honest job and to stay in God’s way and that’s the same advice that I’d give to anybody’s child.
For me, it’s all about believing in life. That’s the same with football, so believing is everything and it’s up to you to make sure that you do what you believe is right.
How you handle a situation represents your beliefs.
I love football and will always do what I believe is right, and would never cheat the game.
Everything you earn you must be done in an honest way and that’s what it takes to be the best.
Winning without deserving it, I would prefer to lose.
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