There was a time when the business life of a famous footballer was relatively easy to understand.
They played football.
They earned a large salary.
They signed sponsorship deals with major brands.
Perhaps they bought some property, opened a restaurant or launched a clothing line on the side.
Those businesses were usually treated as exactly that:
side projects.
Something happening alongside the player's real career.
That description is becoming increasingly outdated.
Some of today's biggest athletes aren't simply putting their names on businesses anymore. They are creating investment companies, production studios, venture funds and ownership structures capable of buying stakes in multiple businesses.
In other words, they aren't necessarily building one company.
They're building companies that own companies.
And that represents a much bigger change in the economics of being an elite athlete.
The easiest way to understand it is to look at Kylian Mbappé
Kylian Mbappé is obviously a footballer.
But look at what exists around him commercially and the picture becomes much more interesting.
Mbappé created an investment structure called Interconnected Ventures, with Coalition Capital operating as its investment arm. That structure has been used to make investments across several different industries.
One of its biggest moves came in 2024 when Coalition Capital acquired a majority stake in French football club SM Caen.
But football club ownership is only part of the portfolio.
Mbappé has also invested in businesses including French health technology company Alan, and his wider investment activity has stretched across technology, sport and other sectors.
That's very different from:
Kylian Mbappé launches a clothing brand.
The important thing isn't any individual investment.
It's the structure sitting above them.
Mbappé can earn money from football and commercial partnerships and then use an investment vehicle to acquire pieces of other businesses.
One successful investment can produce capital for another.
And eventually the portfolio can exist independently of whether Mbappé is still scoring goals.
What is a holding company?
The phrase sounds more complicated than it is.
Imagine a footballer creates:
Player Holdings Ltd.
Player Holdings might then own:
30% of a media company.
20% of a drinks company.
10% of a technology startup.
A property business.
Part of a football club.
An investment fund.
The footballer hasn't necessarily created all of those businesses personally.
Instead, they have created a structure capable of owning pieces of multiple businesses.
That's essentially the important idea.
And it changes the ambition completely.
A side project asks:
What business can I start?
A holding company mentality asks:
What assets do I want to own?
David Beckham provided an early blueprint
David Beckham is one of the clearest examples of what can happen when an athlete's commercial career becomes a genuine business operation.
His business interests have stretched across licensing, endorsements, media and football ownership, while DRJB Holdings has managed major parts of the Beckham commercial operation.
In 2022, Authentic Brands Group bought a 55% stake in Beckham's brand management business for around £200 million, according to Le Monde's account of the structure.
Think about what happened there.
Beckham didn't simply get paid to advertise products.
He built commercial rights around David Beckham into an asset valuable enough that another company wanted to buy part of the business managing them.
That is a completely different level of athlete entrepreneurship.
The athlete himself effectively becomes intellectual property.
And that intellectual property can sit inside a company.
Gerard Piqué has taken another route
Gerard Piqué hasn't simply retired from football and occasionally appeared as a pundit.
He built Kosmos.
Kosmos operates across sport, media and entertainment, with investments and projects that have included properties such as the Kings League.
Piqué has continued investing elsewhere too. In August 2026, he became a strategic shareholder in the Fyers American Gambits chess franchise in the Global Chess League.
Again, the interesting thing isn't chess specifically.
It is the portfolio mentality.
Football helped create Piqué's money, reputation, connections and audience.
Those assets are now being deployed into other businesses.
Football becomes the starting capital for an entrepreneurial career rather than the entire career.
Footballers are even becoming venture capitalists
Mario Götze offers another version of the same change.
Rather than concentrating exclusively on businesses carrying his name, Götze has become an active technology investor.
Goal recently documented how he has built a sizeable startup portfolio while still playing professional football.
And individual players don't necessarily have to build an investment organisation themselves.
They can now invest together.
The Players Fund describes itself as the UK's first athlete led venture capital firm and says its network includes more than 850 elite athletes. It invests in early-stage companies across areas including software, AI, fintech, health technology and media.
That's a fascinating development.
Footballers aren't simply being offered sponsorship deals by startups.
They're appearing on the other side of the table as investors.
Why is this happening now?
Part of the answer is simply money.
The world's best footballers can earn extraordinary amounts during their careers.
But there is a fundamental problem with football income.
Eventually it stops.
A player might have 15 years earning significant money at the highest level.
A successful business can potentially produce wealth for decades.
That means the question increasingly becomes:
How do I turn the money I earn from football into assets that continue making money when football ends?
Historically, property was one obvious answer.
Today there are far more options.
Startups.
Private companies.
Media businesses.
Consumer brands.
Football clubs.
Technology.
Investment funds.
Entertainment businesses.
Athletes now have access to the same kinds of opportunities traditionally associated with professional investors.
But athletes bring something normal investors don't have
Imagine two people invest £1 million into a consumer startup.
One is an investment banker nobody outside finance has heard of.
The other is one of the world's most famous footballers.
The money might be identical.
The value isn't necessarily identical.
The footballer potentially brings:
millions of followers, media attention, cultural relevance, other celebrity relationships and immediate credibility with consumers.
That can make athletes unusually useful investors.
A footballer can put money into a company and then potentially help millions of people discover that company.
That is why the relationship between endorsement and investment is starting to blur.
Instead of:
We'll pay you £1 million to promote our product.
the conversation can become:
Why don't you own part of the company?
Ownership changes the incentive
This is a crucial difference.
Imagine a footballer receives £500,000 to promote a drinks company.
The company becomes enormously successful.
The footballer still received:
£500,000.
Now imagine the footballer receives some money and equity.
If the company becomes worth £1 billion, their stake could potentially become dramatically more valuable.
Obviously, the opposite is also true.
If the company fails, the equity might become worthless.
But that's what ownership means.
The athlete participates in the upside.
This is becoming a much broader trend across professional sport. Investment structures such as CHAMP have been created specifically to allow groups of athletes to invest alongside established investment firms in companies rather than simply promote them.
The commercial relationship is moving from:
Pay me to advertise your company.
towards:
Let me own some of your company.
Social media has made athletes even more powerful
There is another reason this model makes more sense today.
Athletes can now own their audiences.
Twenty years ago, a footballer's public profile was heavily controlled by broadcasters, newspapers, clubs and sponsors.
Today a player can have 50 million Instagram followers.
They can launch a product and communicate directly with those people.
They can create their own production company.
They can build a YouTube channel.
They can launch a brand.
They can promote a company they have invested in.
That means their audience itself becomes a commercial asset.
And sophisticated athletes are beginning to organise businesses around that asset.
The smartest players are separating fame from ownership
This is where the holding company idea becomes especially powerful.
A player's fame will eventually decline.
That's unavoidable.
A 25 year-old superstar may be one of the most famous people in the world.
At 65, they probably won't command the same attention.
But the assets purchased during those years don't necessarily disappear.
Imagine a player uses their peak earning years to accumulate:
stakes in ten startups,
a football club,
commercial property,
a media company,
a consumer brand,
and investments in several funds.
Their playing career might end at 36.
Their ownership career doesn't.
The goal is effectively to convert:
temporary earning power
into:
long-term ownership.
That's a fundamentally different way of thinking about an athlete's career.
Cristiano Ronaldo shows how broad the opportunity can become
Cristiano Ronaldo's commercial interests demonstrate just how far an athlete's business life can expand beyond endorsements.
His name has appeared across hospitality, fitness, fashion and other consumer businesses, while he has increasingly moved into ownership and investment.
In 2026, Ronaldo acquired a 25% stake in Spanish football club Almería.
He has also taken equity positions outside football, including an investment connected to health and wellness.
Again, the interesting thing isn't any single asset.
It's that the athlete's commercial identity increasingly resembles a portfolio.
And football clubs themselves are becoming athlete investments
This could become one of the most significant parts of the trend.
Footballers understand football.
They understand dressing rooms.
They understand players.
They understand supporters.
They understand the pressures surrounding clubs.
And some of them have accumulated enough wealth to become owners themselves.
Mbappé has Caen.
Ronaldo has invested in Almería.
Luka Modrić became an investor and co-owner of Swansea City in 2025. BBC
The traditional post-playing pathway used to be:
Player → Coach → Manager
Increasingly there is another route:
Player → Investor → Owner
That potentially changes who controls football itself.
This also creates an entirely new industry around athletes
Most footballers aren't professional investors.
They shouldn't be expected to understand startup valuations, due diligence, corporate structures and venture capital simply because they're brilliant at football.
So as athletes become investors, an ecosystem is developing around them.
Investment advisers.
Fund managers.
Lawyers.
Family offices.
Venture funds.
Wealth managers.
Business managers.
Holding companies.
Dealmakers.
People who can take an athlete's earnings, influence and connections and help turn them into a portfolio.
The Players Fund is one example of that infrastructure becoming more formalised.
And that's important for Pitchonomy.
Because the athlete economy isn't only creating athlete-owned companies.
It is creating companies designed to help athletes become owners.
Not every footballer is going to become Warren Buffett
There is an important reality check.
Investing is risky.
Most startups don't become enormous companies.
Celebrity backed brands can fail.
Football clubs can lose huge amounts of money.
And having millions of followers doesn't automatically make somebody a brilliant businessperson.
There will inevitably be terrible athlete investments alongside spectacular ones.
But the broader direction is still significant.
Players increasingly understand that the greatest financial opportunity may not be another sponsorship cheque.
It may be ownership.
The football salary is becoming the beginning of the story
For generations, reaching elite football was the financial destination.
Get the professional contract.
Earn the big salary.
Sign the sponsorship deals.
Retire wealthy.
For some modern players, football is becoming something slightly different.
It is the engine that provides the capital, audience and relationships required to build something much larger.
The salary funds investments.
The fame attracts opportunities.
The audience helps businesses grow.
The network opens doors.
And the holding company provides a structure through which those opportunities can accumulate.
That's why describing these businesses as "side hustles" increasingly misses what is happening.
A side hustle sits alongside your career.
A holding company is designed to outlive it.
The most commercially ambitious athletes aren't simply asking how they can make more money while they're famous.
They're asking how they can turn a relatively short period of extraordinary earning power and influence into ownership that could last for the rest of their lives.
Football might make them rich.
But increasingly, they want the businesses they own after football to make them wealthy.
And that is creating another important layer of the new football economy.