Zlatan Ibrahimovic: “Z” vitamin for football and business

By Andrea Montolivo

Rome, Nov 12 (EFE) – He is a football icon, a profile that sponsorship companies are fighting for. His name, Zlatan. At 40, Ibrahimovic continues to make a difference in elite football while growing his career as an entrepreneur, with investments in sports, finances and food with a revolutionary vitamin company.

One of the great architects of Milan’s renaissance, in the top positions of Serie A, Ibrahimovic has decided to return to the Swedish national team with the aim of playing his last World Cup in Qatar.

Giorgio Pautrie, founder of the food supplement company Dante SM and Ibrahimovic’s partner since 2019 with a chewing gum named Mind The Gum explains in an interview with EFE the secrets that make Ibrahimovic not only a football icon, but an elite entrepreneur.

If football has already allowed him to reach the top of the world, with 31 trophies -he is only missing a Champions League title-, Ibrahimovic has successfully invested in padel courts (the so-called Padel Zenter, very widespread in Sweden and in expansion also in Italy) and in financial consulting companies (such as Cirooo, funded along with players like Marco Verratti or Maxwell).

“Ibra’ is almost more of an entrepreneur than a footballer. When we talk, you can tell he has the mentality of an entrepreneur, he has ideas and knows how to sell them. He is intelligent, he promoted himself as a strong, confident character and he knows that this image works, it sells. But in reality he is serene, always available and works with commitment,” said.

Pautrie opened his company in 2015 and turned the usual pills with food supplements, which provide vitamins and other beneficial substances, into a chewing gum that is becoming increasingly popular in Italy. In 2019, Ibrahimovic saw his product and decided to be part of Dante SM.

“Ibra knew our product by chance, tried it and liked it. Then Ibrahimovic’s manager called me and I thought it was a joke. But then I went to a huge office in Milan and they proposed Ibrahimovic to promote the product,” says Pautrie.

“I said ‘yeah, great, but I can’t afford to pay Ibra’. And they said they would finance the project, and that Ibra wanted to be our partner,” he added.

His involvement in Mind The Gum is just one of the business ventures Ibrahimovic has launched, while also providing his image, and his 55 million Instagram followers, for a mobile app promoting digital fitness, Buddyfit.

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EFE