Messi and Ronaldo Are Building Tech Portfolios. Mo Salah Is Playing a Different Game

Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Mohamed Salah person spent the past 2 decades defining 1 of soccer’s top eras. Now, arsenic the 2026 FIFA World Cup marks Ronaldo’s last quality astatine the tourney and different defining infinitesimal successful the careers of Messi and Salah, they’re besides preparing for beingness beyond the pitch.

Before Messi’s Argentina bushed Salah’s Egypt successful 1 of the tournament’s champion matches connected Tuesday, Salah was asked which subordinate helium would take for 1 last “last dance” from a procreation that included some Messi and Ronaldo. He chose Messi without hesitation. The reply carried other value fixed that Ronaldo had already confirmed this would beryllium his last FIFA World Cup earlier Portugal’s Round of 16 decision to Spain, bringing an extremity to his six-tournament World Cup career.

Away from football, however, the players’ futures are opening to diverge. Messi and Ronaldo person progressively embraced equity stakes successful AI, wellness tech, and startup companies, portion Salah has mostly stuck to a much accepted premix of commercialized partnerships, property, and philanthropy.

That displacement has accelerated implicit the past decennary arsenic task superior firms and startups progressively seek personage investors who bring much than money. A footballer with hundreds of millions of followers tin connection planetary reach, credibility, and organisation that fewer accepted investors tin match.

“The displacement from accepted sponsorship agreements towards equity stakes and startup investments reflects a broader absorption connected semipermanent wealthiness instauration and fiscal information beyond an athlete’s playing career,” says Kamraan Khan, a spouse astatine Dubai-based steadfast Archers Valuation and Advisory.

Over the past decade, elite athletes person progressively traded one-off endorsement fees for ownership stakes successful companies, joining a broader inclination that has seen sports stars go investors alternatively than conscionable marque ambassadors. In October 2022, Messi launched Play Time HoldCo, a San Francisco–based concern steadfast alongside entrepreneur Razmig Hovaghimian, laminitis of video-streaming level Viki, which had earlier been acquired by Rakuten. The firm’s extremity is simple: put successful companies operating crossed sports, media, and technology.

“While sponsorships typically make income during an athlete’s highest earning years, equity investments tin supply the imaginable for superior appreciation and, wherever applicable, aboriginal dividend income, helping to physique much sustainable wealthiness aft retirement,” notes Khan.

Initially reported to beryllium targeting astir $200 million, Play Time has since assembled a portfolio that progressively resembles a Silicon Valley task fund.

Per Play Time’s website, its bets see FieldAI, Fish Audio, World Labs, Perceptron, Intangible, and SuperAnnotate, alongside sports-specific investments successful the FIFA-licensed mobile crippled Matchday and the memorabilia marketplace AC Momento.

Outside Play Time, Messi besides holds an equity involvement successful phantasy shot level Sorare, which lets users bargain and commercialized officially licensed integer subordinate cards, and joined the ownership radical of KRÜ Esports, the Valorant and Rocket League enactment founded by his erstwhile Argentina teammate Sergio Agüero. His three-year, reportedly $20 cardinal deal to service arsenic planetary ambassador for the blockchain fan-token level Socios.com is simply a paid promotional contract, not an undisclosed equity stake.

As portion of his landmark 2023 determination to Inter Miami, Messi received an ownership constituent alongside his wage and signing bonus—an unprecedented arrangement successful Major League Soccer. While reports person speculated astir the size of that stake, neither the nine nor MLS has publically confirmed the details.

Sportico valued Inter Miami astatine $1.45 billion successful February 2026, up 22 percent year-on-year and the highest valuation successful MLS history.

If Messi’s investments bespeak Silicon Valley’s AI boom, Ronaldo’s are centered astir wholly connected wellness technology—an country that aligns intimately with the idiosyncratic marque helium has spent decades cultivating astir fittingness and longevity.

Ronaldo became an capitalist successful Whoop—the wearable fittingness tracker and wellness analytics company—in May 2024, a woody that Whoop itself called “one of Ronaldo’s astir important investments to date,” aft helium had already been a paying subordinate for years. “Whoop has go 1 of the astir important tools I usage to enactment my semipermanent health,” helium said astatine the time. Whoop’s foray into the UAE is backed by some the Qatar Investment Authority and Mubadala Investment Company.