Former Aston Villa flop Jota is set to become a billionaire after swapping his football boots for business.
The 32-year-old Spanish playmaker also had spells with Brentford and Birmingham City. He retired from football in October 2022, though, to focus on his agricultural tech company, ‘Groinn’.
Jota, who ended his career in La Liga with Alaves, turned down a multi-year deal from an unnamed Saudi Arabian club to concentrate on his business venture, as per the Mirror. His company, which has partnered with the Spanish government to provide digital agricultural aid, is predicted to be worth £600million by 2025.
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The ex-Premier League ace invested millions of his own money into Groinn. Speaking to The Athletic, Jota revealed: “The value of the company is now worth 10 times more than the money I invested. I am already taking offers, but I know they won’t even be one per cent of its value in three years.
“We are in negotiations with a lot of governments around the world because they want the technology and we are industry leaders. We are talking to big companies in America and we are moving quicker than we thought.”
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Groinn makes a device that help farmers with day-to-day tasks. The device costs just £175 thanks to Jota’s investment, with similar products costing more than £25,000. He claims “our projections say we will make £1billion profit”.
“We are like the iPhone,” added Jota. “Before that, you had letters, fax machines and telephones, but the iPhone puts it all into one and doesn’t cost too much and will be better quality. We did the same in agriculture with all technology on one machine.”
Jota started his career at Celta Vigo before joining Brentford after their promotion to the Championship in 2014. He impressed during his time at Griffin Park, scoring 23 goals in 75 games to capture Birmingham’s attention in August 2017.
Birmingham broke their record transfer fee to sign Jota. He played 75 games for the Blues before making a controversial transfer to their bitter rivals Villa in June 2019. Villa’s manager at the time was Dean Smith, who coached Jota at Brentford.
Jota hardly made much of a splash at Villa Park, though, only playing 10 Premier League games before his contract was cut short in October 2020. This led him to Alaves, where he didn’t manage to score in 23 La Liga matches and ultimately decided to hang up his boots.
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