20 January 2024 , 20:13
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Ex-Aston Villa star Jota is on course to become a billionaire after ditching football to invest in an agricultural technology company.
The Spanish playmaker, 32, hung up his boots in October 2022, having been without a club for more than a year. He is best remembered in England for his spells with Brentford, Birmingham City and Villa but finished his career in La Liga with Alaves.
Jota quit football after losing the ambition to keep on playing. The former Premier League ace did receive a multi-year deal from a unnamed club in Saudi Arabia after leaving Alaves in June 2021 but decided to focus on his business, called 'Groinn'.
Profit margins are expected to reach a billion pounds at Jota's company, which is set to be valued at £600million in 2025. Groinn has also agreed a partnership with the Spanish government to provide digital agricultural aid, with more big deals on the way.
Jota invested millions of pounds of his own money into the company after leaving football. Speaking to The Athletic, the Spaniard has admitted that "a lot of people tried to convince me not to retire" and he was aware of Groinn during his playing days.
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"The value of the company is now worth 10 times more than the money I invested," said Jota, who made more than 300 first-team appearances during his career. "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."
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".
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"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 failed to make an impression at Villa Park, playing just 10 times in the Premier League before his contract was terminated in October 2020. That allowed him to join Alaves, where he failed to score in 23 La Liga outings and decided to call it a day.