You’ll be excused for thinking that football players never need to work another day in their life after retiring. After all, don’t they make more than the GDP of some small countries? Despite this, like most people, footballers tend to live a lifestyle that’s in line with their income.
Essentially what this means is that when they can’t play football anymore, they need another way to maintain their lifestyle. With that in mind, how do football players make money after retirement?
In summary, after retiring, ex-football players can make money through several different sources. The main sources include punditry, coaching, sponsorships, football policy making and politics
Table of Contents
Coaching
After playing football for several decades, it’s only natural that football players would be particularly knowledgeable in the game.
In many cases that turns out to be true and opens the door to coaching. In all fairness, who better to teach players how to be world class athletes than someone who was once a world class athlete?
Players are required to gain the necessary qualifications to make the transition from playing to coaching. After all it is a career switch. Obtaining a coaching license is usually the first step that players take.
A coaching license or ‘coaching badges’ is essentially a qualification that indicates that the qualification holder has the appropriate knowledge required to coach others.
To cut down the time required to go into coaching after retirement, some players may even work towards their coaching license while being an active player. Wayne Rooney is an example of just that. When signing for Derby County in 2020, Rooney even took on the role of player-manager to get some on the job experience.
Several former players have made incredibly successful transitions into the world of coaching. Managers such as Pep Guardiola, Mauricio Pochettino, Zinedine Zidane and Jurgen Klopp were all former players, and are regarded as the most accomplished manager in history.
Punditry
If an ex-player knows enough about the game to get into coaching, then surely, they know enough about it to get into punditry? The answer to that question is a resounding yes. At this point, it’s almost uncommon for commentators of football games to not be ex-players.
And it makes perfect sense too. Who else is better suited to analyze a game and break down what we’ve just seen than someone that has literally been there before? The answer to that question is not your mate at the pub- usually.
To the best of my knowledge, it does not seem as though there are any major barriers to entry or formal training required to get into punditry. TV broadcasting networks seem to invite players on as guest and keep the ones that perform well.
Some of the greatest pundits in recent years have been Gary Neville and Jaime Carragher. Although they were once rivals on the pitch, they’ve formed quite the punditry duo.
Where else are you going to see two 40 something former rivals racing each other during a newscast?
Brands and sponsorships
Football players double as celebrities nowadays. So much so that the end of their playing careers does not necessarily mean that their sponsorship deals will end too.
I mean, practically speaking, if you removed the “footballer” from celebrity footballer, what do you have left? It’s science.
On the sponsorship front, players such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi have reportedly signed lifetime contracts with Nike and Adidas, respectfully. Safe to say they won’t have to worry about their income after hanging up their boots.
On the brands front, with the prominence of platforms such as Instagram and Youtube, ex-players have a hoast of options for making money after retirement.
For example, the popular football lifestyle clothing brand Balr was started by Eljero Elia, Gregory van der Wiel and Demy de Zeeuw. All Dutch football players.
The brand mostly uses social media and popular active football players to market their apparel. Being friends with footballers really does help to promote your product. Who would’ve thought?
Football Policy making
It may not surprise you to know that many of the official policy makers in world football are ex-players. There are varying levels of policy making and management that ex-players can go into.
For example, Edwin van der Sar, a former Dutch goalkeeper is currently serving as the director of football at AFC Ajax.
On the other end of the spectrum, Michel Platini is the president of UEFA and undoubtedly has a large part to play in policy making within European and world football.
Politics
Yes, you read that correctly. Football players have even been known to transition into politics once their playing careers are over. Many have entered the political scene in the past, such as Roman Pavlyuchenko and Carlos Valderrama.
However, none have been quite as successful as George Weah, who was elected as the president of Liberia in 2018.
Miscellaneous and outliers
The path to a career outside of football is not always so linear, however. Below is a list of 4 players that have taken some rather unconventional routes to success.
Michael Owen
Michael Owen took a popular route to employment after retirement by choosing to become a pundit. However, what sets him apart from many others is his interest in horse racing.
He is a co-owner of a stable in Cheshire (Manor House stables) and turns a tidy profit by selling purebred horses for hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Matthieu Flamini
Flamini’s story is definitely one of the most unique ones out there. Since leaving football, he has made headlines through a company that he is co-owner of.
This is an energy company known as GF biochemicals. GF biochemicals are an industry leader in producing levulinic acid; a compound that can be used in plastics, fuels and the pharmaceutical industry.
To give you an idea of how significant this compound is, the U.S. Department of Energy has identified levulinic acid as one of the 12 molecules that can lead to a greener world.
This company is reportedly worth $28 billion dollars with Flamin owning 50% of the company. I.e he could net a cool $14 billion profit if he ever intended to sell out. Not too bad.
Robbie Fowler
Having fled England to play out his career in Australia, Robbie Fowler has proven to be quite the savvy businessman. While he has been known to own and invest in several companies, he is best known for his interest in real estate.
It’s reported that he owns over 100 properties within his real estate portfolio and has a net worth of £30 million pounds.
Fun fact is that his interest in real estate earned him a chant while playing at Manchester City. It went “We all live in a Robie Fowler House!”. Probably not far off, to be fair.
Louis Saha
One of the more interesting entries in this list. Once he retired from playing the game, Saha found it difficult to find sponsors for his personal brands. This led him and his business partners to start a company called Axis Stars. The company’s focus is to help match athletes with brands through an interconnected network.
Athletes are able to scroll through user rated brands and establish contact through the mobile app that the company operates out of In that sense, it has been described as something between tinder and uber.
Closing thoughts
As you can see, there’s no need to fear when something comes to an end. It often just indicates the beginning of something else. That’s actually pretty good advice; I think I’m gonna write that down.
If you’re interested in reading about how footballers make money while their playing careers are active, be sure to check out this article.