Highlights

  • Michael Owen has found success and made a solid investment in horse racing, earning hundreds of thousands through ownership of Manor House Stables, with him now estimated to be worth £36 million.
  • Mia Hamm, despite earning a modest salary in football, made the majority of her wealth through endorsements, becoming a member of AS Roma's Board of Directors and co-owner of LAFC, proving the potential for female football players in business ventures.
  • Mathieu Flamini is the best example of a footballer earning a huge sum of money after retiring, with his biochemical company seeing his net worth soar to £10 billion.

It's well documented that footballers earn a pretty penny for playing the professional game. Frankly, it's beyond much of our comprehension that a human being can possibly be pocketing £250,000 every seven days for playing the sport they love week in, week out.

Cristiano Ronaldo was the highest-earning player in the business in 2023 after his move to Al-Nassr, nabbing a cool $200m (£157m) wage, while Lionel Messi and Neymar made up second and third in 2023 at Inter Miami and Al-Hilal respectively. This is according to Front Office Sports.

However, there are actually some footballers who were quite wealthy before they pulled on the boots, and also those who became even richer after they waved goodbye to the sport. Here at GIVEMESPORT, we have previously looked at 11 footballers who were rich before they became football players, with the likes of Hugo Lloris, Patrick Bamford and Gerard Piqué featuring. There was even room for the lesser-known Faiq Bolkiah who, strictly speaking, is the world's richest footballer as the nephew of the Sultan of Brunei, owner of a mind-blowing $20 billion (£15.7bn).

But now, we're flipping the script and looking at 11 football players who have become rich since they retired from the beautiful game. With ex-Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool stars making the cut, there's plenty to pique your interest.

Net worth estimations courtesy of The Sun, Soccer Souls and Celebrity Net Worth.

Jota

Net Worth: Unknown

Jota of Aston Villa celebrates

Jota didn't really make much of an impact in the Premier League. He spent one season at Aston Villa, playing just 16 times before his contract was terminated a year early. He is best remembered for being headbutted by Danny Drinkwater in training while the Englishman was on loan at Villa from Chelsea. An unremarkable career – spent at the likes of Celta Vigo, Brentford, Birmingham City and Alaves – came to an in 2022 when he was still only 31 years old.

Since then, however, he has made some pretty fascinating career moves away from football. As per The Athletic, the Spaniard has become the figurehead of Groinn, an agricultural company projected to become worth £600m in 2025. The 32-year-old invested several million pounds into the business immediately after his retirement and the growth has been rapid. With Groinn – a wireless plantation system that monitors the status of crops and large fields – set to expand from Spain into Portugal, northern Europe, North America, and Asia, it could be worth as much as £3 billion by 2026. Jota and other shareholders are expected to pocket around 25 per cent of the profits too.

Jota

Club

Years

Celta Vigo

2011 - 2014

Real Madrid Castilla (loan)

2012 - 2013

Eibar (loan)

2013- 2014

Brentford

2014 - 2017

Eibar (loan)

2016 - 2017

Birmingham City

2017 - 2019

Aston Villa

2019 - 2020

Alavez

2020 - 2021

Michael Owen

Net Worth: £36 million

Michael Owen

A Ballon d'Or winner with Liverpool and a Manchester United number 7, Michael Owen had a pretty lucrative career in football, but turning his attention to horse racing has arguably been even more profitable. As the co-owner of Manor House Stables, the 44-year-old has seen winners at Ascot and the Dubai Gold Cup coming through the doors in Cheshire, earning hundreds of thousands by selling them on to other owners and even countries. Combine that with millions in prize money, including seven figures from his favourite horse 'Brown Panther' alone, he's made a pretty solid investment since hanging up his boots.

Michael Owen

Club

Years

Liverpool

1996 - 2004

Real Madrid

2004 - 2005

Newcastle United

2005 - 2009

Manchester United

2009 - 2012

Stoke City

2012 - 2013

Dexter Blackstock

Net worth: £7.8 million

Dexter Blackstock

Dexter Blackstock will forgive us for saying that his time in football was a little mediocre, albeit still successful, across spells with clubs such as Nottingham Forest and Queens Park Rangers. The Championship journeyman may have struggled to make it into the big time in the world of football, but he has more than made up for it since.

It was his decision to invest in property while playing that has teed him up for post-football success, now boasting a portfolio of more than 50 houses at a total valuation of £5m. However, his current project comes in the world of pharmaceuticals where, after the investment of Michail Antonio and Henri Lansbury, he became the CEO of his own medical blockchain platform.

Dexter Blackstock

Club

Years

Southampton

2003 - 2006

Plymouth Argyle (loan)

2005

Derby County (loan)

2005

Queen's Park Rangers

2006 - 2009

Nottingham Forest

2009 - 2016

Leeds United (loan)

2013

Rotherham

2016 - 2017

Mia Hamm

Net worth: £32 million

Mia Hamm

Despite arguably being the first female football superstar, Mia Hamm actually made most of her money away from the sport that made her famous. Having only earned an estimated $100,000 per season, the US legend made the majority of her reported $10m (£7.87m) of wealth from endorsements with major companies such as Pepsi, Nike and Gatorade. Now, Celebrity Net Worth estimate Hamm's net worth to be $40m (£32m).

Hamm has continued to use her influence since hanging up her boots, becoming a member of AS Roma's Board of Directors in 2015 and a co-owner of LAFC one year previously. Women's football is on its way up – which is brilliant to see – and you are looking at one of the pioneers of the game. There is very little doubt that other female football players will be given similar opportunities post-career.

Mia Hamm

Club

Years

North Carolina Tar Heels

1989 - 1993

Washington Freedom

2001 - 2003

Louis Saha

Net worth: Unknown

Manchester United's Louis Saha

A successful forward in the Premier League for Manchester United and Everton as well as his nation France, Louis Saha has been as intelligent in business as he was in the penalty area. His company 'AxisStars', described by Football Daily as a 'mix between Tinder and Uber', allows players and brands to match with each other and rate their experience afterwards.

The 45-year-old got the idea after struggling for support once he retired in 2013, and although most of his clientele are footballers, he's been able to branch out into other sports as well. Being able to use his own personal struggles after he had retired from the game he adored for so many years to make a positive impact, is inspiring stuff from Saha.

Louis Saha

Club

Years

FC Metz

1997 - 2000

Newcastle United (loan)

1999

Fulham

2000 - 2004

Manchester United

2004 - 2008

Everton

2008 - 2012

Tottenham

2012

Sunderland

2012 - 2013

Lazio

2013

Asamoah Gyan

Net worth: £17 million

Asamoah Gyan

Asamoah Gyan is one of the most recognisable athletes in Africa as the continent's highest-scoring player in World Cup history, finding the net at each of the 2006, 2010 and 2014 tournaments for Ghana. A whistle-stop tour of money-rich clubs near the back end of his career - which ended in 2021 - certainly boosted his bank balance, but not as much as a whole arsenal of post-football businesses.

Gyan boasts an array of companies - often prefixed 'BabyJet' - in a number of areas, such as boxing promotion, buses, planes, real estate, bottled water, rice and noodles, petrol stations as well as bankrolling Ghanaian music stars. With a net worth of around £17m, the Ghanaian hero has set himself up perfectly for retirement.

Asamoah Gyan

Club

Years

Liberty Professionals

2003

Udinese

2003 - 2008

Modena (loan)

2004 - 2006

Rennes

2008 - 2010

Sunderland

2010 - 2012

Al Ain

2012 - 2015

Shanghai SIPG

2015 - 2017

Shabab Al Ahli (loan)

2016 - 2017

Kayserispor

2017 - 2019

NorthEast United

2019 - 2020

Legon Cities

2020 - 2021

Related
12 Footballers Who Were Better for Country Than Club
Players like Harry Maguire and Lukas Podolski were always better for their country than for their club.

Sun Jihai

Net worth: £20 million

Sun Jihai

An absolute game-changer for Chinese football as the nation's first player and goal-scorer in the Premier League, Jihai has made sports data his game after hanging up his boots in 2016. The Manchester City hero founded his own company - HaiQui Sports - which received backing from China Media Capital, an equity firm valued at over $60 billion and with 30% of City Football Group among their assets.

Seven years into the venture, Jihai's company had a base of 400 million users in China, equivalent to the seven biggest populations in Europe combined. Wowsers. MiaoHi - an app that connects celebrities to their fans - is the main source of Jihai's income as there are over 400 million people using it, and he is now estimated to be worth £20m! These numbers are unfathomable, but go to show the impact the City cult hero has had since retiring from the game.

Sun Jihai

Club

Years

Dalian Shide

1995 - 2002

Crystal Palace (loan)

1998 - 1999

Manchester City

2002 - 2008

Sheffield United

2008 - 2009

Chengdu Blades (loan)

2009

Guizhou Renhe

2010 - 2014

Chongqing Lifan

2014

Beijing Renhe

2015

Robbie Fowler

Net worth: £30 million

Robbie Fowler in action for Liverpool

You might be thinking that Robbie Fowler, who rose to fame as 'God' at Liverpool with 183 goals, is still in the beautiful game as head coach at Brisbane Roar and you'd be correct, but hold on a second. Fowler has been making some careful investments on the side, following in the footsteps of Owen with a foray into horse racing alongside Steve McManaman and has owned a sports promotion company since the 1990s.

Property is the real moneymaker for Fowler, though, with the Reds legend reportedly owning more than 100 properties in England's north-west and his net worth is believed to have passed £30m. Still holding a love for the beautiful game, Fowler was recently sacked as the manager of Al-Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia. He did have the comfort of his enormous net worth to fall back on, however.

Robbie Fowler

Club

Years

Liverpool

1993 - 2001 and 2006 - 2007

Leeds United

2001 - 2003

Manchester City

2003 - 2006

Cardiff City

2007 - 2008

Blackburn Rovers

2008

North Queensland Fury

2009 - 2010

Perth Glory

2010 - 2011

Muangthong United

2011 - 2012

Ramon Vega

Net worth: Unknown

Ramon Vega

We'll forgive you if the name 'Ramon Vega' doesn't ring any bells despite being a backup for Sol Campbell and Ledley King at Spurs as well as playing at the 1994 World Cup and Euro 96. But since retiring at just 31 years old in 2003, Vega has come from earning a paltry £ 15,000 a week at the peak of his career to over £20m after his playing days by moving into investment and finance.

Things certainly took an extremely positive trajectory for the former defender, but the Brexit vote did cause issues. His asset management and private equity firm controlled around £650m of client funds, prompting him to try and buy Portsmouth in 2009 and even consider running for FIFA President in 2015. However, Brexit then hit and that was the end of the company, called Vega Swiss Asset Management, according to the Daily Star.

Ramon Vega

Club

Years

Grasshoppers

1990 - 1996

Cagliari

1996 - 1997

Tottenham

1997 - 2001

Celtic (loan)

2000 - 2001

Watford

2001 - 2002

Creteil

2002 - 2003

Thomas Gravesen

Net worth: £100 million

Everton's Thomas Gravesen

Perhaps most famous for inexplicably moving from Everton to Real Madrid's 'Galacticos', Thomas Gravesen has enjoyed even greater luck by ditching football to pursue a crazy life as a Las Vegas high-roller. The Dane moved to 'Sin City' after ending his career at age 32 and having made wise financial investments, he reportedly boasted a value of £100m in 2021, a sum which may have been halved in just one poker game.

His healthy bank account meant that he lived alongside tennis legend Andre Agassi and Oscar winner Nicolas Cage, before eventually moving back to Denmark to work as a TV pundit. With all of his poker winnings taken into account, it is said that Gravensen's own personal net worth is still around the £100m mark as of 2023.

Thomas Gravesen

Club

Years

Vejle Boldklub

1995 - 1997

Hamburg

1997 - 2000

Everton

2000 - 2005 and 2007 - 2008 (loan)

Real Madrid

2005 - 2006

Celtic

2006 - 2008

Related
Footballers who did unusual jobs after retiring
Daniel Agger, Thomas Gravesen and Fabian Barthez are just some ex-footballers who took up new jobs after retiring.

Mathieu Flamini

Net worth: £10 billion

Mathieu Flamini

The last thing you'd expect from the dogged midfielder who shone with Arsenal and AC Milan is joining the biochemical industry, but that's exactly what Mathieu Flamini did with GF Biochemicals. Alongside business partner Pasquale Granata, the Frenchman has made his company - estimated to be worth £21 billion - the industry leader in producing Levulinic acid, a fuel made from plant waste that can be used in the creation of plastics.

Using this as a platform, Flamini has also released the world's first magazine devoted to eco-sustainability and has created new university degrees focused on the bio-economy. The former defensive midfielder may have been a very good player, but remarkably, his accomplishments away from the sport have surpassed any legacy he could have ever left. Now estimated to be worth an astonishing £10 billion, Flamini has the highest net worth of any current or former football player.

Mathieu Flamini

Club

Years

Marseille

2003 - 2004

Arsenal

2004 - 2008 and 2013 - 2016

AC Milan

2008 - 2013

Crystal Palace

2016 - 2017

Getafe

2018 - 2019