B&C sat down with the pro to unpack his move into specialist finance and why the business is primed to kick off once the final whistle blows on his playing career.

Starting as a young lad at Walsall, then truly developing his career with a 250-game stint at Mansfield before moving on to Port Vale, Mal eventually found himself at Shrewsbury.  As well as developing as a player, as a British-born Indian Sikh he focused on representing other young South Asians, showing that they too can play high-level football.

However, life beyond the pitch is now on his mind.

“I'd like to continue to play for as long as I can. But you always have to be ready, especially once you pass that 30 mark — it’s not going to last forever,” said Mal.

For the past 14 years, his life has been focused on the demands of the game — training and playing matches. But with retirement becoming an ever-closer reality, four years ago he and his father started MJBENN Ltd.

“It is a daunting thing… even the lifestyle transition is probably going to be massive. It might take me time get used to it, but that's why I thought putting a bit of focus into the business side, trying to set something up, will make that transition a bit easier.”

While Mal is still out on the pitch for Shrewsbury, MJBENN currently remains something of a side project, mainly catering to the professional football community, although it also works with the general public. After his retirement, he hopes to continue to expand the company’s coverage into the wider market, while maintaining an edge with his fellow athletes.

“At the moment [working with footballers] is easier, I suppose, because I'm in the game. I can explore opportunities while I'm training, while I'm playing.

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“After football, it probably is a market that I'll look into a bit more through other avenues,” he said, such as the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association).

“I don't want to corner it just to professional footballers or professional athletes, as obviously that closes down the rest of the market. But from my background, I'd like to offer advice and deals to professional athletes.”

Mal noted that property remains a go-to, low-risk investment for players higher up the leagues — and his firm aims to give those turning to bridging a cheaper route in. He believed demand for bridging among athletes was strong, but understanding of the product lags behind.

“I think it is something very popular within the sports industry, so I'm trying to tap into it a bit more now, to tell people that I am there as a company. I'm willing to go through all the process with you and [I’m] charging minimal fees [compared to] the bigger companies.”

Currently, the business is funded by the clothing line owned by his father, but Mal acknowledged that, once he retired, he aimed to reach out to the football community to secure further investment.

At the moment, Mal still doesn’t know when he will hang up his boots, but he plans to take his experiences from the world of professional football forward with him, especially as he starts to navigate more deals in the budding days of his lending business.

“With football, everyone says it’s highs and lows… But any career you're going to go down is going to have highs and lows. Football might be a bit more extreme – extreme highs, extreme lows.

“But I think one thing I have learned through my football career that will translate into my business is that I'm going to have times, maybe a couple of months, where it's going to be hard to find deals, or maybe I got the wrong deal, but there’s going to be good times if you keep working at it.”