Francesco Totti turns 50: how his empire has changed since his retirement
The financial statements of his companies reveal how ‘Il Pupone’ approached his business career once his footballing career had come to an end
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“Let me be a little scared.” It was 28 May 2017 and, at the Stadio Olimpico, Francesco Totti had just played the final match of a career spent entirely in a Roma shirt. In front of the fans, he read his farewell letter: “Now the lights are going out,” said the captain. At the age of forty, twenty-five of which he had spent doing just one job, a new chapter was beginning for him.
Today, Totti turns 50: his clubs’ financial statements reveal how that transition was managed from a business perspective.
The family holding company
Totti’s business ventures outside football had begun long before his retirement. On 4 April 2001, when ‘Il Pupone’ was 24, his mother and brother set up Numberten, a family holding company designed to manage his image rights and the financial interests linked to his career. Having parted ways with his first agent, Franco Zavaglia – a partner of Alessandro Moggi at the ‘Gea’ agency (which was implicated in the Calciopoli scandal) – Totti entrusted his affairs to his brother Riccardo, the holding company’s chairman.
Using the proceeds from his playing contracts, Numberten began to invest in the Roman property market. This led to the creation of five property companies linked to Totti, which were involved in the purchase and management of buildings in various areas of the capital, from the centre to the outskirts, often through leasing agreements with MPS. The peak came in 2006, when Numberten recorded revenues of 3.29 million euros and a profit of 806,000 euros.
From 2008 onwards, one of the group’s companies leased 35 flats in a residential complex in Tor Tre Teste to the Municipality of Rome, intended for families in housing crisis: over six years, the arrangement generated more than €5 million in revenue.
The search for a new business and the property turnaround
In October 2017, five months after retiring from football, Totti became the sole shareholder of Numberten. From then on, he sought to capitalise on the reputation he had built on the pitch to diversify his business activities. At the end of 2019, CT10, a sports agents’ agency, was established; in 2024, it recorded revenues of around 317,000 euros – up 38 per cent – and a profit of 80,000 euros. Less successful were the ventures relating to It Scouting, a company set up to identify young footballers which recorded €4,000 in Covid-related compensation as its sole revenue, and Tz Service, a padel company founded in 2023 together with the entrepreneur Alessandro Zaffarani. The latter took in just over 1,000 euros in 2024.
