After more than 10 years as holder of the WBO super-middleweight belt, Joe Calzaghe is one of Britain’s most celebrated – and dedicated – sportsmen. So it comes as a surprise to learn that, over the past few years, the 36-year-old Welshman has also been steadily building up an overseas-property portfolio.

In fact, if all goes to plan, Calzaghe will hang up his gloves later this year as an undefeated champion and focus on what is, effectively, his pension plan: a multimillion-pound portfolio of flats and houses stretching from the Americas, via Barbados, to eastern Europe, Cyprus and Turkey, as well as several properties closer to home.

Exactly when he will retire, however, remains unclear. At the end of July, a wrist injury forced him to pull out of what was intended to be his final fight – a bout with Roy Jones Jr, scheduled for September in Madison Square Garden, New York – which would have netted him about £10m. It is now expected to take place in November, and he has suspended his gruelling training to recuperate at home in Blackwood, north of Cardiff.

“I missed the property boom over here,” says Calzaghe,who is divorced and has two sons, Joe Jr, 14, and Connor, 11.“But I like to visit new places and I find property investment fascinating. It’s good to have other interests, but, as a boxer, you have to live boxing. It’s 100% dedication.”

It was Calzaghe’s Italian roots that prompted his first overseas investment. Six years ago, he paid £200,000 for a seven-bed house near the castellated town of Alghero, in northwest Sar-dinia. His father, Enzo – a former musician, butcher and window salesman, and now his trainer – was born and raised on the island, but left to come to Britain in 1971.“It’s good to have a home there we can use for family holidays, and it was cheap for that sort of property,” Calzaghe says. “It also gave me the idea to invest more.”

Other properties followed fast – so fast, in fact, that, when pressed, he admits he isn’t sure exactly how many flats and houses he owns. He relies on his management to keep track. Fortunately, an inventory of properties is supplied. In Turkey, for example, there’s a three-bed penthouse in Altinkum, on the Mediterranean coast, bought for £45,000 in 2006. In Egypt, he has two flats in Hurghada – a one-bedder bought for £35,000 and a two-bedder that cost £56,000.

This year, he has added several others, including a £54,000 one-bedroom flat on Venezuela’s Margarita Island, two £137,000 two-bed flats at the Flamingos Beach & Golf Resort, in Mexico, and, glitziest of all, a four-bedroom villa with private pool at the Royal Westmoreland villa community and golf club, on Barbados’s exclusive west coast. Calzaghe shakes his head as he tries to remember the price, before finally coming up with a figure of about £1m. “I used to play golf, but then I got an elbow injury,” he says. “I’m planning to use the villa for myself as well as rent it out. And the first thing I’m going to do when I retire is take up golf again.”

Calzaghe expanded his portfolio further after a chance meeting with Joseph Upchurch, a boxing fanatic and director of Aston Lloyd, a City-based global property developer. “We just got on really well,” he says, “and he introduced me to some new places.” His purchases from the company included two flats in Bulgaria and a villa in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus.

Calzaghe, who plans to spend half the year abroad when he retires, also has properties in Chelsea, Sheffield and Liverpool, but he says his main home will always be in Wales, where he moved when he was a toddler. He also insists he is perfectly happy with his modest fourbed chalet-style home – which he shares with his model girlfriend, Jo-Emma, 29 – hidden away at the top of a track.

“It’s nice and private here,” he says. “I get no hassle, and the gym and my parents are just down the road. At the end of the day, my roots are here. I love the place.”

Aston Lloyd; 0845 260 0646, www.astonlloyd.co.uk

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