South African Entrepreneurial Sports Stars
South African Entrepreneurial Sports Stars. Being a sports star can be very lucrative when one knows that they will not be playing forever and they decide to be wise in terms of how they use their money at the peak of their career. While many sports stars choose to recklessly spend their money on things that won’t bring them any value in the future, others choose to invest their money into businesses that they can build after they have retired from sports. Below are some of South Africa’s entrepreneurial sports stars.
Siphiwe Tshabalala
Lawrence Siphiwe Tshabalala is a South African professional soccer player who most recently played as a midfielder for AmaZulu. With the success he had in football, Tshabalala has tried to achieved success in the business world as well as he established his own hang out spot called ‘ShaYe’ with former teammate Reneilwe Letsholonyane. Due to the pandemic, the establishment was forced to close down, but Tshabalala has shown that he is willing to start and build a business and therefore he might venture into business again in the future.
Lucky Lekgwathi
Lucky Lekgwathi is a retired South African football defender who played for Orlando Pirates. He played for South Africa at the 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup, at which South Africa were guests. Since he retired firm football Lekgwathi has been building his eatery establishment called Grootman, that is situated in Soweto. Even though he was forced to closed down due to the unrest and looting, he quickly managed to reopen the business again.
Brighton Mhlongo
Brighton Mhlongo is a South African football goalkeeper who plays for Premier Soccer League club Chippa United. In 2021, Mhlongo was forced into early retirement due to an eye injury. Due to this Mhlongo decided to focus and pursue other ventures which also included entrepreneurship, he partnered with fellow footballer Oupa Manyisa to establish an app called My Football CV, which allows young players to register and complete their profile with agents now able to simply view a player by the click of a button.
Bryan Habana
Bryan Gary Habana OIS is a South African former professional rugby union player who initially played as an outside centre but later on, he shifted to the wing. He most recently played for Toulon in the French Top 14 competition, and for the South Africa national team. He is the co-founder of Paymenow, which is a financial wellness and inclusion platform that allows employees early access to already earned wages – Earned Wage Access (EWA).
