Can Blockchain Fix Football?

Executive Summary

Owing to the benefits made available by blockchain technology, smart contracts and distributed systems it is now possible to realize levels of transparency and decentralized control that were previously unfeasible. An appropriately designed and implemented platform, utilizing these new technologies, could help in achieving the systematic protection of the integrity, fairness and sustainability of professional football and its participants.

It is the objective of this blog to highlight specific problems or issues that have occurred within the business and/or governance activities surrounding professional football and demonstrate how the utilization of blockchain technologies could have solved for each instance. This is with the hope that a conversation will be opened up about whether the stakeholders within professional football would be willing to look at blockchain solutions more seriously.

Approach

Analysis of Case Studies

• To elaborate on the Executive Summary, the approach here will be to revisit specific, real life problems or issues that have occurred in the past and that could feasibly occur again today. These will be referred to as Case Studies and will be numbered and listed out here.

• Each Case Study will analyze what went wrong and elaborate on how and why the problem occurred.

• Once the problem has been described a detailed explanation of how a hypothetical smart contract platform (Smart Contract Transfer Platform) would have been able to prevent the problem occurring.

Smart Contract Transfer Platform (SCTP)

• The Smart Contract Transfer Platform (SCTP) is a hypothetical platform, the high level design of which has been drawn out here.

• The premise of the SCTP is that would serve as a mechanism for clubs, player, agents and governing bodies to engage and exchange in an autonomous and decentralized way.

• The fundamental workflows represented on the platform are:

  • Player Ownership by a Club

  • Player Transfer between Clubs

• The purpose of drawing out this high level design is, so that rather than drawing out a new design for a whole different technical solution for each Case Study the SCPT can be used as a starting point.

• With the design of the SCTP already laid out, each Case Study will extend the design in a specific area so that the details can be expanded upon.