Smart Contract Transfer Exchange Platform: Variations on Connecting

The SCTP would work perfectly if each participant could operate their own node which in itself has prescribed privacy features based on what participant type they are. However, this is not realistic and even in the presentation of a hypothetical design it might mean readers discount the concept of the SCTP straight off the bat before we even get on to demonstrating its potential benefits.

To mitigate this throwing of the baby out with the bathwater I want to point out, as with every single part of this platform design, we have so many options of how this could be implemented. So lets walk through a couple of alternative ways participants might connect to the SCTP.

Variation 1: Specific rules on how Intermediaries and Players can interact:

Conceivably the platform could be broken down into various functions and the sharing of data could vary depending on the business function that’s being transacted. Take the following business functions within the transfer exchange process:

  • Agents signing players and managing their interests.

  • Agents negotiating with clubs on behalf of players they represent.

If we look at these two business functions, the relationship between participant types could be highly bespoke to allow certain business functions to be available to certain node combinations.

For example you could enable player to find agents and vice versa on the platform and once that relationship has been struck the agent would be able to negotiate for players on their behalf. Players could have visibility to the negotiation process and approval of the resulting agreement.

See the below example where Jorge Mendes is brokering a deal for Charlie Adam to Atletico Madrid. If a player and an agent both onboarded to the platform operating their own nodes it could be feasible that they could agree a relationship via a smart contract that would enable the agent to perform negotiations on behalf of the player.

I’m being a little facetious with the example above but one starts to realize the potential benefits of the SCTP even in this one scenario. Being able to link to and initiate the activity of agents in this way could effectively decentralize and provide transparency to the way in which players and their intermediaries form ties. One has to look at the broader benefits of this beyond big money Premier League moves. What about players in the lower leagues? What about players in regulatory loose jurisdictions? Although there are all sorts of logistical questions about the players node here (how do they operate it? How do we know its them operating it) to which their are so many ways to potentially answer, we can start to see a technical design that could significantly improve the information available to players at the same time as provide a tool to regulate intermediary activity.

Variation 2: Players rely on intermediaries to connect to platform:

It could also be an option for players to rely on their agent to represent them on the platform. This would likely be by the agent (or agency) providing some sort of portal for players, who lack the time and infrastructure to connect to a platform like this, to connect in to (for the record, I hate this and it undermines so many of the benefits of a DLT solution in this context, but adding it as an option for the sake of argument).

Take the scenario where Voker Struth is representing both Charlie Adam and Neymar whilst both players lack the capability to connect to the platform directly themselves.

In this scenario both players would utilize the intermediaries infrastructure to onboard on to the platform. The intermediaries infrastructure can allow players to connect via an external portal that would enable them to see ledger information without have the ability to connect directly into it.

This is a classic case where it would be easy to implement but we’d lose a lot of the purity of the concept, but….swing and roundabouts.