FORMER Nottingham Forest and Southampton star Dexter Blackstock has made a small fortune since hanging up his boots.
The ex-striker made 350 appearances across the top two divisions but he has been even more successful since his move into the pharmaceutical industry.
Blackstock, 37, is the founder and chief executive of MediConnect, a company which offers a blockchain solution to stop the overprescription of drugs.
He quit football in 2017 aged just 31 and switched careers with the aim of saving thousands of lives from drug prescription abuse.
Blackstock also stepped in to help during the Covid-19 pandemic, using his company to help supply PPE to frontline staff working in hospitals.
But the main aim of MediConnect is to “provide transparency for all parties within the supply chain…to add traceability of medications”.
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Blackstock, who began his career at Saints and played in the Prem nine times, wants to stop opioid addiction.
The former Leeds star also has a successful property portfolio which he has built up throughout his career, but his main passion is in pharmaceuticals.
Blackstock explained: “I had lost my mojo and I had no intention of carrying on playing football. I wasn’t enjoying playing at Rotherham.
“I had 14 great years as a professional footballer, played nearly 400 games and scored almost 100 goals.
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“But even throughout my career, from the age of 18, I have always had a property portfolio outside of football, where I have invested in over 50 properties, from the auction stage to redesign or rebuild.
“However, via a good friend in the pharmaceutical industry, for the last four or five years it has been one of the major pursuits in my life to eradicate the huge dangers with the over prescription of drugs.
“As it stands, there is nothing to stop anyone ordering drugs from one online pharmacy, then exactly the same with another company and then going down to their local GP and topping up with the same.
“The GP has no idea you have already ordered the same prescription elsewhere. “Our white paper identifies the need to prevent patients ordering prescriptions with multiple pharmacies.”
Blackstock has a reported net worth of £7.8million with the bulk of his earnings coming from the 50 properties he owns, rather than his football wages.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
