FORMER Chelsea defender Ryan Bertrand has founded and sold a business before even retiring from football.
The left-back, 33, started the Blues' Champions League final triumph 11 years ago as they beat Bayern Munich on penalties to clinch their first ever European triumph.
More than a decade on, Bertrand has played for the likes of Aston Villa and Southampton, but now plies his trade at Leicester.
And while he is gearing up for a return to the Championship following the Foxes' relegation from the Premier League, it is off the pitch where he has garnered much of his success in recent years.
Bertrand started trading as a young 18-year-old at Chelsea – an interest which eventually led him to start his own brokerage in 2015.
He set up the business – a fintech start-up called "Silicon Markets" – with the idea of "bringing institutional tools to the at-home trader".
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And after developing the company, the ex-Blues star sold it to a Malaysian firm.
But that is not the only venture he has dipped his toe into over the past decade.
Bertrand also developed an emoji business alongside ex-team-mate John Terry.
Speaking to Sky Sports in 2021, he said: "Sports is my passion, that'll never leave, but finance is another one.
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"As you're building the blocks towards post-career, you've got to re-learn, re-train, help yourself become an expert in something different.
"It's those horror stories that have kept me ahead of the game, I'm always thinking forward."
Bertrand's impressive business-savvy attitude led him to complete the Harvard alternative investments course.
The course, put on by one of the world's most renowned universities, is something the defender hopes will further his business knowledge.
He also has plans to take on the FA's technical director course at some stage – and has one eye on a role on the board of a football club in the future.
Bertrand, who is set to work under his 21st manager in Enzo Maresca, told The Guardian in 2018: "At first, English managers could possibly fear it [a director of football]. No one is telling me which players to buy, they’d say.
"But if you look at it, the demands on one human in the modern-day game … you can’t become six of you.
"There are specialisms – player recruitment, making sure the club’s methodology is being kept from the youth team up.
"That’s ultimately what the director of football’s role should be."
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