After putting their blood, sweat and tears into football for their entire lives, the thought of retiring - usually between the age of 30-40 - is a frightening one for top-level players, particularly ones who have no interest in coaching or punditry. However, the game has become a commercial powerhouse over the last 20 years, with TV and sponsorship deals leading to huge profits for major clubs, which, in turn, helps them pay lucrative salaries to their best players.
Endless possibilities open up for life after football with the wealth that they amass. Some have the nous to start business projects that not only vastly increase their net worth, but also generate the same sense of fulfilment and joy as their past exploits on the pitch.
Sir David Beckham
In addition to being a former England, Man Utd and Real Madrid winger with a wand for a right foot, Sir David Beckham is best known for being a co-owner of MLS franchise Inter Miami. He is also a minority investor at English League Two side Salford City, and boasts enduring relationships with global brands like adidas, Hugo Boss, Tudor and Safilo.
Beckham Brand Holdings is the company behind his reported £1.8 billion net worth, though, which he initially founded with wife Victoria in 2014, alongside long-time manager Simon Fuller. The company manages the couple's core commercial assets, global brand licensing, and sports investments, with David and Victoria becoming 100% owners in 2019 after buying out Fuller's 33% stake.
A restructuring then took place in 2022 under Beckham's DJRB Holdings umbrella - a brand management company housing DB Ventures, the Seven Global division and Studio 99. Beckham sold a 55% share in DB Ventures to U.S. group Authentic Brands for £200m ($273m), keeping a 45% stake and creative control.
DRJB Holdings generates tens of millions in annual pre-tax profits and regular multi-million dollar dividends for the Beckham family, and Studio 99 is the production company that made Netflix documentaries about the life and career of both David and Victoria, with the former drawing 3.8 million viewers in it's first week alone after release in 2023. Beckham, who was awarded a knighthood as part of King Charles' 77th birthday celebrations, also co-founded the health supplement brand IM8 last year, in partnership with the biotech company Prenetics.
Lukas Podolski
Lukas Podolski enjoyed a stellar playing career spanning 23 years, taking in successful spells at Bayern Munich and Arsenal while forming part of Germany's World Cup winning squad in 2014, and has also proved himself to be a shrewd businessman.
He launched the dessert brand Ice Cream United in Cologne in 2017, and opened the first of his Mangal Doner kebab shops a year later. Despite continuing to play football through to 2026, Podolski kept finding ways to expand his portfolio, first by launching the The Glücksgefühle Festival - one of the largest music festivals in Germany - then by co-founding the six-aside indoor Baller League tournament alongside ex-team-mate Mats Hummels and Felix Starck.
The Baller League has expanded to the U.S. and UK over the past two years, the Mangal Doner franchise has 30 locations across Germany, and Podolski's net worth at the time of his retirement from football in May had reached £180m. The 41-year-old has also become the majority owner of his boyhood club Górnik Zabrze through his company LP Holding GmbH, and has brand partnerships with NAVEE, Crocs and Mega Casino World.
Louis Saha
Louis Saha retired from football in 2013 on his 35th birthday, after representing the likes of Fulham, Man Utd, Everton and France, and amassing 162 career goals. Had it not been for bad luck with injuries, Saha would almost certainly have scored more and stayed at the highest level for longer, but during the frustrating times, he spotted a gap in the market that has since turned him into a billionaire.
Alongside marketing specialist Kate Hamer and tech executive Patrice Arnera, Saha co-founded AxisStars, a digital career and brand management platform that connects professional athletes and entertainers with corporate partners. By helping sports stars struggling with strategic investments, legal guidance, and post-retirement transitions, Saha has earned more money than the majority of his most high-profile former footballing colleagues, with AxisStars now valued at over £4.3 billion.
"In my bad luck, I was lucky, because now I’ve seen the big picture and I have the opportunity to really help. And I think I feel more excited as an entrepreneur than I did on the field," Saha said in a 2017 interview with The Guardian. "I really liked being a footballer, and it felt very natural to play the game, but this is a real challenge. It is a hard process but it’s so rewarding, because if I can help 100,000 people, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done."
Mathieu Flamini
Mathieu Flamini had a solid, if unspectacular, playing career. He took in two stints at Arsenal, winning three FA Cups, and also played for Marseille, AC Milan, Crystal Palace and Getafe, while earning three caps for France.
But now, Flamini is more famous for his business acumen than he ever was on the pitch. Indeed, the 42-year-old is widely recognised as the richest former football in history, with an estimated personal net worth of £10 billion, largely tied to his co-ownership of GF Biochemicals (though he has sought to play that figure down, noting that company asset valuations are frequently confused with individual cash wealth).
Flamini was still playing when he created the biotechnology company, and took over as CEO in 2022, three years after his retirement. GF Biochemicals was the first company in the world to mass-produce levulinic acid, a plant-waste molecule that serves as a sustainable substitute for petroleum in plastics and cosmetics.
The Frenchman now steers the company's commercial growth and billion-dollar value, but it's never been about financial gain for him. Flamini has called climate change "the biggest problem of our time" and he is committed to helping solve it. Flamini boosted his green commerce credentials even further in 2016 when he co-founded The BioJournal, an original e-magazine dedicated to the bio world and ecological sustainability.
Michael Owen
As a Ballon d'Or winner who played for Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle and Man Utd, and scored 45 goals in 89 games for England, Michael Owen is rightly considered on the of the finest strikers of his generation. Even as his body failed him in the second half of his career, Owen was still a deadly penalty-box predator who lived to score goals.
Football was not Owen's only passion, though. He purchased Manor House Stables in Cheshire when he was just 22, and transformed it from a dairy farm into a high-tech training facility for racehorses that includes uphill gallops, an equine swimming pool, and heated horsewalkers. It has since housed upwards of 140 thoroughbreds, including Brown Panther, the facility's most famous champion strictly bred and owned by Owen himself.
Manor House Stables consistently pulls in £1 million to £2.4 million in annual prize money from its collective runners, and Owen is reportedly among the top 20 wealthiest horse owners in the United Kingdom, with a net worth of over £54m. Sponsorships deals with Umbro, Tissot, and Jaguar have also contributed to that, along with various property investments and TV punditry contracts with the likes of TNT Sport.
Gerard Pique
Gerard Pique became a Premier League and Champions League winner at Man Utd before going on to win 30 more trophies at Barcelona, including another three European Cups and nine La Liga titles, while he also helped Spain to glory at both the World Cup and European Championship. He is one of the most decorated Spanish players ever, and will no doubt also claim to be among the most business savvy.
In 2017, Pique founded Kosmos Global Holding with the backing of Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani. As a sports, media, and entertainment holding company and venture builder, Kosmos quickly became a force to be reckoned with, signing a 25-year contract worth £3 billion with the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to manage and reshape the Davis Cup, and completing a takeover of Spanish lower league club FC Andorra.
Kosmos went on to launch Kings League, the seven-a-side indoor football competition featuring internet streamers and several unconventional rules, which has secured over £160m in total funding and lured in adidas and Netflix as partners. The ITF contract was cancelled in 2023 due to financial disputes, but Pique has since put more focus into the Kings League and FC Andorra projects, both of which are thriving.
FC Andorra have risen from the fifth tier to La Liga 2 on his watch, while Kings League has branched out by establishing the women's equivalent Queens League, Kings League Americas, and the Kings League World Cup. As if all that wasn't enough, Pique also co-founded the isotonic drink brand 426 Miles with fellow Barcelona legend Carlos Puyol, and co-founded eFootball.Pro in partnership with Konami, with his personal net worth thought to stand at around £80m.
Gary Neville
Man Utd hero, Premier League Hall of Famer, beloved broadcaster, Dragon. Gary Neville was an exceptional right-back who won everything at club level and led by example in an England shirt, displaying a consummate level of professionalism that he's transferred into his many business and media ventures.
Neville, who co-owns Salford City alongside Beckham, serves as a director or active principal across over fifty UK companies, with a commercial portfolio spanning across real estate development, hospitality, media production, higher education, and sports. He is a co-owner of GG Hospitality, which manages venues like the Stock Exchange Hotel and Hotel Football outside Old Trafford, a co-founder of Buzz16 - the production company behind The Overlap - and he created the Relentless Group with partner Anthony Kilbridge, which drives major urban real estate projects in Manchester.
Greater Manchester's University Academy 92 was also co-founded by Neville as he sought to expand educational access for younger people from lower-income backgrounds. It often feels like the 51-year-old is everywhere at once, a constant presence in news headlines and on TV screens.
Indeed, Neville's Stick to Football podcast pulls in over one million views a week, he's a commentator and pundit for Sky Sports and ITV, and he secured a seat on Dragon's Den as the popular BBC programme's first ever guest investor. His personal net worth is estimated to be between £70m to £100m, which will surely only keep rising because of his incredible work ethic.
