Hammered, Leisure, Villa… the businesses of the soccer players

Aitor Ocio still remembers that former Athletic Bilbao player who lived on income and whose daughter was asked at school to write an essay telling what her father did for a living. While her friends poured out their adoration for the architect, the lawyer, the greengrocer or the doctor on duty, this little girl left the page blank because she was unable to shape what he did, once he was off the pitch, to earn a living. “My colleagues found the anecdote funny, but it made me think. ‘This will never happen to me’ -I said-, ‘my daughter has to identify what her father does’».

Twenty years later, during which he took the opportunity to study Humanities and Business “and I was inspired to read the magazine ‘Emprendedores'”, Aitor Ocio runs three companies focused on aesthetics, personal well-being and sports practice, and has a stake in a Sevillian real estate developer. «I understood very soon that if you want to earn the trust of those around you, you cannot live forever on what you were; that if what you sell does not hold, it is worth nothing ». He knows that he is lucky: when he made a change in his life he had a cushion, and that in his case intuition, daring and perseverance were aligned. Today he has 34 employees in his charge, “34 personal circumstances”, and perhaps because he comes from the world of football, he values ​​nothing more than a team. He claims to have succeeded.

The defender’s case is just one more in a long list of entrepreneurs who decided to reinvent themselves when they hung up their football boots or who immersed themselves in the investment world process when they were still active. There are those who seem blessed with the magic wand of fortune and who have suffered formidable setbacks. There is Gerard Piqué, the epitome of business success, now embarking on the construction of a luxury hotel in Malaga. The defender has spent years revealing himself as a man especially gifted for business -Kosmos, the Davies Cup, ‘League of Legends’- has chained unquestionable triumphs in recent years that have placed him among the hundred most imaginative entrepreneurs according to the Forbes list. The last one, his entry into the Sorare platform, in which he invested 3 million when he was practically unknown and is now valued at 3,600 million. The other side of the coin is posed by Kerad Holding, which went from being the symbol of its emporium – it touched the same investments and real estate development as the food industry – to enter the red a few years ago.

Between drones and stud farms

His teammate, Iker Casillas, is another star with a nose. The business incubator that it presented in October, Sport Boost, oriented towards innovation and youth, has already begun to bear its first fruits, with projects such as Fly, a ‘startup’ that combines drones and artificial intelligence to record matches and which has a commercial aspect through fertilizers; o Idoven, dedicated to the early detection of heart problems; o Kognia, a game analysis software. The expectations are bright and help mitigate the bitter taste in the mouth left by Ikerca, the brand with which ‘San Iker’ managed real estate investments from Boadilla del Monte to Móstoles and which collapsed five years ago.

Sergio Ramos, for example, is cleaning up his latest troubles at Paris Saint-Germain these days with the opening of a John Reed gym in Madrid. The one from Camas, who adds sports sponsorships and huge benefits from social networks to his 15 million salary, has been immersed in real estate businesses since 2004, when he founded his parent company Sermos. Ramos has made a lot of money, but he has also suffered setbacks such as that of Los Berrocales -with embargoes and vulture funds involved- or that of the ‘El Marquesado’ shopping center in Espartinas. His greatest joys come from the hand of his SR4 stud farm, which occupies a 44-hectare estate in Bollullos de la Mitación and where he breeds purebred Spanish horses, and his investments in art, with works by Phil Frost or the street artist Banksy.

Like Ramos or Piqué, many are still active: striker Andrés Iniesta (a striker in Japan and the face of the winery that his family runs in Albacete), Celta midfielder Denis Suárez (in charge of hotels, restaurants, offices and department stores, food) or the Granada striker Jorge Molina, who lives a sweet moment on and off the pitch: the oldest in LaLiga to make a triplet is also the owner of several gyms. Among those who are already watching the match from the stands are Fernando Torres, more muscular than ever and dedicated to Nine Fitness, a line of boutique gyms; Álvaro Arbeloa, at the helm with his brothers Yago and Raúl from Miogroup, a well-established digital marketing consultant on the Stock Exchange; or Ezequiel Garay, the Argentine defender who, like the previous one, wove his career on horseback between the United Kingdom and Spain, and who has been sidelined by injuries from football. For months he has been recovering from the bad drink stuffed into a work vest, that of the 15 chalets he builds in Bétera (Valencia).

The importance of a ‘plan B’

Everyone heard at home that the life of a player is short and that it is convenient to have a ‘plan B’. This is confirmed by David Villa, alma mater of the DV7 Group focused on training young players around the world, with academies from New York to Tokyo, both cities in which he played in the final stretch of his career. “We left our profession between the ages of 30 and 40, a time when you are old for football but still young for life”, explains this football ‘legionnaire’, who took his first shots in Langreo, “a time of which some values, some illusions, friends and family remain». The permanent public scrutiny is not something that Villa misses: «Fame is the way public admiration is expressed, and that is good, but I have reached that point where what really fills me is developing my business projects and being surrounded by my own”.

The same refrain heard by Borja Fernández, who at the age of 15 was already in the lower categories of Real Madrid and who glimpsed the first lessons of the manual of the perfect entrepreneur in the Real Madrid changing rooms, surrounded by galactic, although between his salary and that of they will mediate an abyss. “Talking about investments was a recurring theme, imagine, although your aspirations are not the same with those dream chips as when you have 20,000 euros.” Of course, adds the midfielder who said goodbye at Real Valladolid, “some only tell the things that go well for them and not the bad ones.” He also learned something else: «There are many vultures that come close when luck is on your face and that disappear without a trace when things go wrong. That does not free you from future stumbles, but some key already gives you, ”he slides.

Fortune smiles on this genuine product from La Masía. In his hands are the production company Kosmos and the organization of the Davis Cup, not to mention the KOI team of ‘League of Legends’ which he owns together with Ibai Llanos. In 2020, it invested 3 million in the online platform Sorare, which went from being unknown to having a value of 3,600 million. In July he embarked on the construction of a luxury hotel in Malaga.

Together with his brothers Yago and Raúl, the 56-time international defender leads the digital marketing consultancy Miogroup, a company with a strong family character that already has a presence in Mexico and that does not give up looking for new markets. One fact: the price of its shares soared 57% when it went public on BME Growth.

The defender based in Bilbao, 45, is attracted more by personal care companies. His are Clínica Henao, an aesthetic medicine establishment converted into a wellness center, the Balinese spa S’Thai and Thefitsports, for personal training. From his time in Seville, he remains linked to the real estate developer Grupo ABU.

The midfielder from Ourense owns a rural hotel in the Ribeira Sacra, ‘O Cabo de Mundo’, a rental house and a vineyard where he shapes white and red wines, such as Urbanita, Vago and Cortes. He lives in Valladolid, where he has two gastrobars, the last one opened just before the pandemic, ‘Melel’.

He directs the DV7 Group, with soccer academies in New York, San Diego, Vancouver, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Japan; while helping players from all over the world to become professionals. He has participation in the Queensboro FC of the USL Championship; and in Owqlo, a technology platform that connects sports properties with their fans. Its investments are located in Spain and the USA.

For years, the Ikerca company managed real estate investments and image rights, earning 4 million a year. The heart attack took him away from the stadiums, but not from the action. In addition to the foundation that promotes educational projects, he leads Sportboost, an incubator for start-ups linked to sport.

Retired this past summer as a result of a serious hip injury, the Argentine defender is already taking his first steps in the real estate world. As a promoter, it has debuted with Gargor Luxury State, which is building 15 luxury villas in Bétera (Valencia), single-family houses of 175 m2 with a private pool at a price of half a million euros.

After 14 years at the Catalan club, this football legend is clear about his refuge when he hangs up his boots. His family has been running a winery in Albacete since the 1990s with sixteen wine brands, including organic ones, which are already making their way into the Chinese market.