Erling Haaland has just spent nearly two weeks worth of his gigantic Man City on something you would not necessarily expect.
The 23-year-old is one of world football’s best-paid players, with a base wage of a reported £375,000 per week.
However, that figure will be topped up enormously through goal bonuses and other performance-related incentives.
The powerful centre-forward therefore has a lot of pocket money to find ways to spend, and his latest venture tells us something about his life outside football
Haaland invests in Norwegian bank
As reported by Bloomberg this week, Haaland has bought £600,000 worth of equity in Maritime & Merchant Bank ASA.
The purchase, which was made through his investment company, is confirmed in the company’s financial statements.
That amount, which is slightly shy of the amount that the goalscorer earns over a fortnight, has bagged him 600,000 shares in the company.
Maritime & Merchant Bank ASA hails from Haaland’s home country of Norway and is also believed to count the striker’s father, Alf-Inge Haaland, as an investor.
It is not the City superstar’s first investment away from football.
And his growing business portfolio is emblematic of growing financial savviness within the upper echelons of the game.
Haaland’s other investments and what they tell us about him
Haaland, who won the Premier League golden boot again this season, has reportedly made a number of investments in the shipping, real estate, oil and pharmaceutical industries.
But the most on-brand venture for the long-locked bagsman is surely his minority stake in Norwegian hairband company Bon Dep.
There was once a time where football’s top stars were poorly advised, with some unfortunately making catastrophic financial missteps.
But players are no longer individuals as much as they are a whole team, which includes those who can steer them in the right direction when it comes to making investments.
Haaland is an eccentric character that defies a lot of football’s norms, but his growing investment portfolio is not as unusual among football superstars as you might initially think.