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By LES ROOPANARINE Published: 06: 43 AEST, 4 May 2025 | Updated: 07: 22 AEST, 4 May 2025 2 View comments Jose Ignacio Peleteiro Ramallo knows his way around a field. The 33-year-old Spaniard, more familiar to most simply as Jota, demonstrated as much over the course of a football career that took him from childhood club Celta Vigo to Brentford, Birmingham City and Aston Villa, where his contract was terminated early, triggering a return to La Liga with Alavés. Since his retirement in October 2022, however, the former attacking midfielder has become familiar with a quite different type of field: the kind rutted by tractor tracks rather than marked out by precise white lines. Jota is the founder and CEO of Groinn, an agricultural technology company that he has backed to the tune of millions and describes as a 'passion project'. In its previous guise as a startup named Ramalloc Innovation, the initiative had ample potential but lacked the funding required to scale up its operations. Jota had long watched the business from afar, but it was only once he stopped playing football that he had time to act on the urgings of friends with a knowledge of the industry, who encouraged him to invest. The company went on to become part of Groinn, and Jota is now is on course to make a mint, according to financial analysts. Ex-Aston Villa player Jota owns a £3billion agricultural technology company, but faces claims he cannot afford to pay £15, 000-a-month support for his kids The Spaniard had previously spent two seasons with Villa's cross-city rivals Birmingham City When Jota's Villa contract was cancelled by mutual consent after just one season, he returned to La Liga for a season before retiring at the age of 31 to become an agri-tech entrepreneur The figures that have been bandied about are wild. With the firm's technology already in use everywhere from Spanish and Belgian greenhouses to Dutch tulip farms and Saudi mangrove forests, Groinn is reportedly worth more than half a billion dollars and counting. The business is predicated on the use of a solar-powered smart device that captures data gathered by sensors inserted in the earth to give farmers information about soil quality, weather conditions and other factors affecting crops. Designed to reduce costs and increase yields, the tech comes in at less than £200 - a fraction of the £25, 000 that mining such data cost previously. Groinn is reportedly projected to reach a valuation of £3billion next year, which would make Jota infinitely more successful as a tech entrepreneur than he was as a footballer. Even he has struggled to take in the rate at which things have progressed. 'The past few months have been absolutely crazy in terms of professional growth, ' said Jota. 'The speed at which we are moving sometimes doesn’t even allow us to fully grasp everything we’re achieving. 'Seeing the scale of the projects we are leading can be overwhelming at times, but one thing I’ve learned in this stage as CEO is that there will always be highs and lows, and a never-ending stream of challenges to solve. 'The key is to keep moving forward. Never get stuck in the problem - always find solutions. ' As the founder and CEO of agricultural technology company Groinn, Jota is reputedly on course to become a billionaire - a claim at odds with reports that he faces financial difficulties Jota's first wife Jessica Bueno, with whom he is seen here at the wedding of Dani Carvajal in 2022, claims he has failed to fulfil his financial obligations - an accusation Jota denies After splitting with Bueno, Jota began a relationship with Serbian model Ajla Etemovic, above, whom he married last summer, a few months before the couple welcomed their first child Yet Jota's story is by no means one of unmitigated success. His football career looked rich in promise when, on loan from Celta Vigo, he played a pivotal role in steering the unheralded Basque side Eibar to Spain's top tier for the first time in 2014. Jota's 11-goal contribution that season earned him a place in the Segunda División team of the year and a move to Brentford, who were targeting a similar feat after a 68-year absence from English football's top table. While Brentford would eventually miss out on promotion, suffering a 5-1 aggregate defeat to Middlesbrough in the play-off semi-finals, Jota replicated the previous season's 11-goal haul - and clearly relished the creative licence he was afforded by manager Mark Warburton. 'I like that freedom on the pitch, ' said Jota, likening his style to that of Manchester City playmaker David Silva in an interview with the Independent. 'Of all the Championship teams, Brentford try to play football more than anyone. I like the philosophy and the style of play. ' It was that outlook on the game which, following spells with Birmingham and Villa that yielded diminishing returns, finally ushered Jota into an unexpectedly early retirement. Many fans will share his view that the emphasis on physicality in modern football - tracking back, closing down, sprinting forward, all within a rigid tactical framework - has stifled spontaneity and self-expression. 'The modern game has become more about systems and being athletic, ' Jota told the Athletic last year. 'I was a playmaker and a No 10, but you don’t see that any more. 'Juan Roman Riquelme wouldn’t start [now] because stats and data are all based on how much you run rather than your technical talent, which is God’s gift. Players don’t get the freedom, it’s just a tactical game and everyone is machine-like. Jota is seen holding off a challenge from Wolverhampton Wanderers' Willy Boly shortly before his move from Brentford to Birmingham City in August 2017 Jota wound down his career at La Liga side Alavés, with whom he signed a one-year contract after leaving Aston Villa in October 2020. 'That was when I started losing motivation. A couple of years before, I was free to do what I wanted with the ball. Now every manager wants to play the same and training is about individual running. ' Not everything has changed, though, as Jota discovered while at Villa when he was headbutted by fellow midfielder Danny Drinkwater during a heated practice session at Bodymoor Heath. Training-ground bust-ups are as old as the game itself, and while Drinkwater was suitably contrite, and Jota suitably magnanimous, the incident did little to dampen the Spaniard's creeping sense of disillusionment with the sport - or the growing allure of a fresh start. 'At that moment, I felt more motivated to develop a high-potential business project than to continue playing football, ' Jota has said of his decision to turn down the offer of a fresh contract with Alaves. If the glitz and glamour of competing at the top end of Spanish and English football was not without trials, life since has likewise brought challenges. Last month, the Spanish gossip magazine Lecturas claimed that Jota owes liens worth 100, 000 euros (£85, 000) on a luxurious five-bedroom mansion in the Basque town of Mungia that he has been trying to sell for almost two years. The initial asking price of 2. 9 million has been dropped by almost a million over that period, prompting speculation about Jota's finances that has been magnified by an apparent lack of filed accounts for his business interests. A claim by Jessica Bueno, his first wife, that Jota has reneged on an agreement to pay 15, 000 euros a month to support their children, Jota Jr and Alejandro, has only heightened scrutiny. He retired in 2022 at the age of 31 and began work at an agricultural technology company Jota has been firmly on the frontline in his role as Groinn chief executive, visiting sites across Saudi Arabia earlier this year to promote the benefits of the company's technology Jota is seen with his wife Etemovic who has offered vocal support throughout his very public television spat with his former wife Jessica Bueno Jota has credited Faisal Buresli, a friend from Kuwait, for his conversion to Islam In a bitter back-and-forth played out on the Spanish television show De Viernes, Jota has countered that he continues to pay Bueno more than 2, 000 euros monthly, but considers her demands excessive. 'I no longer have a salary and I no longer have the monthly cash to spend 15, 000 euros a month, ' said Jota, who also rejected claims he was unfaithful to Bueno during their marriage and asked her not to pursue her modelling career. 'I've been paying for the apartment, the schools. 'I continued to take care of that, but there came a time when it started to affect my cash flow. I have paid the children's support every month. ' But as Bueno has noted, Jota, who converted to Islam last year, continues to enjoy an apparently opulent lifestyle in Dubai, where he lives with his second wife Ajla Etemovic, a Serbian model. 'He says he doesn't have any money, ' said Bueno. 'I don't know much about his life, but I do know that people find him eating out at restaurants, and I see that he travels. ' If Groinn proves as lucrative as predicted then Jota, whatever the current state of his finances, is sitting on a gold mine; if not, a postponed legal case against Bueno, who is suing over his alleged failure to honour his obligations, could prove costly indeed. According to his ex-wife, Jota, seen here with his current spouse Ajla, has failed to honour n agreement to pay 15, 000 euros a month to support his children Jota Jr and Alejandro Jota celebrates after scoring for Aston Villa in a pre-season friendly against Walsall in 2019 Jota is seen playing for Alavés in a La Liga match against Elche. Having joined the club during the global pandemic, the Spaniard ended his football career playing in empty stadiums Yet Jota has long been bullish about his prospects. 'I knew when I left football [that] I had something really big on my hands, ' he said last year. 'We’re not talking about opening up a restaurant - I’ve invested so much money into this. 'The value of the company has projections that show this will be the world’s biggest agriculture company. ' Time will tell.
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