AFTER a footballer has endured a difficult spell in his career, some may go on to recover or some may well fall by the wayside. For Martin Braithwaite, he’s managed to take his his career to new heights both on and off the pitch.

After his non-event spell at Middlesbrough, the Danish striker now finds himself to be the richest footballer in the Barcelona squad through his own wages and business ventures. His net worth is said to be worth hundreds of millions. That is some transformation.

In the same summer Braithwaite joined Middlesbrough, he invested in a real estate business with his uncle Phillip Michael called NYCE Companies which was just the start of his entrepreneurial ventures.

Braithwaite arrived on Teesside as part of a summer of huge spending at the club off the back of their relegation from the Premier League. The latest influx of talent included record signing Britt Assombalonga, Ashley Fletcher, Jonny Howson and Darren Randolph.

A less than inspirational spell saw Braithwaite loaned back to the French league with Bordeaux mid-way through his first season after Tony Pulis was appointed during the festive period. It was a repeat scenario the following season when Braithwaite’s contribution was questioned once again by Pulis and this time he went to Spain with Leganes.

The transfer was made permanent in the summer ending Braithwaite’s two year spell on Teesside with 40 appearances and nine goals. In a surprising turn of events in 2019, Barcelona came calling amid an injury crisis to their strikers with the Catalan giants stumping up whatever they could to plug the gap in the attacking areas.

After a substantial pay rise on a four-and-a-half year deal at the Nou Camp, investment opportunities struck gold for Braithwaite.

The Northern Echo: Martin Braithwaite celebrates scoring for BarcelonaMartin Braithwaite celebrates scoring for Barcelona

In 2020, Forbes revealed that Braithwaite earned the second most in the Barcelona squad behind Lionel Messi with his property business worth up 250 million euros. Their property development was prolific in the New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey and San Antonio regions. Adding to that, units they have now bought in Jacksonville, Virginia Beach and Greater Austin and their property expansion continues to widen.

Messi’s departure to Paris St Germain in the summer of 2021 made him the highest earner in the Barcelona squad and most of it was nothing to do with his wages from the club.

Now at the age of 31, Braithwaite wants to use his platform to help increase the number of millionaires amongst the black community in the United States.

"We want to teach people about financial freedom and the power that they possess" he said on a Yahoo Finance channel panel, as per The Irish Times. “We have so many things that we want to do and always with the mindset to give back."

From his own comments, Braithwaite definitely seems to be chasing ‘The American Dream’.

Speaking to The Philadelphia Inquirer, he explained: "I always had this American side, and I think maybe that's why my mindset is maybe more American: dreaming big, doing amazing things, writing goals down.

"In Denmark, we have an amazing system protecting the people. Everyone is good. No one needs anything. In America, it's not really the same thing."

If that wasn’t already enough, Braithwaite runs a clothing line called Trente with his wife Anna-Laure Louis Braithwaite, who is also a French entrepreneur as well as a journalist and TV personality.

Given the current financial climate, putting investments into iron clad profitable businesses seems a smart way to handle the purse strings. For Braithwaite, he’s managed to catapult his earnings into stratospheric amounts of money.

On the playing side, he is effectively surplus to requirements at Barcelona with reports suggesting that the Catalan giants are happy to let him go in the summer. If he goes and he somehow can’t find himself a new club, then he’ll at least have a couple of hundred million quid to fall back on.