André Figer, vice president of one of the largest sporting career management companies in Brazil, has his eyes firmly set on tokenizing soccer players.
The well-known entrepreneur told Cointelegraph Brazil that blockchain technology and athlete tokenization has the potential to transform the management of sport worldwide.
The Figer Group has been involved in many significant moves in the soccer world, including the move by midfielder Giovanni to Barcelona, the purchase of Robinho by Real Madrid as well as the midfielder Júnior Urso for Guangzhou R&F of China.
Tokenization can support younger players
Figer said he is supporting the launch of a platform named Olecoin that will be focused on encouraging new football players who often abandon their careers due to a lack of financial support.
Citing figures from FIFA, he pointed out that more than 265 million people play football in the world and that Brazil accounts for the largest number of soccer stars in the world. However, he said that while millions of dollars are spent on international player transactions, there are countless talents that get lost “along the way”:
“I believe that [blockchain] is a solution to some pains in the market. We see more and more frequently, parents of players offering their children almost as if at an auction between agents. We need to understand that the desperation on the part of the father and the family in general, in being able to help the son to continue his career, causes this to happen.”
Benefits for investors and players
That’s where Olecoin can help. According to the project’s developers, the idea is to create an ecosystem in which micro-investors can, through the acquisition of the player’s token, participate in their future receivables, with small participation for a specific period in their future salaries and marketing contracts. Figer said:
“Initiatives like this project that I am part of can give more chances to these players, because some are really good but due to conditions, just do not have the opportunity. If there is a situation where you have a financial incentive so that this player has the possibility to do training, to have his sporting materials, to have adequate food, transportation to the training place, etc. So, through this platform we were able to generate opportunities for the player. ”
The project was a finalist in the Smart Dubai Global Blockchain Challenge 2019. The player platform is expected to launch in the second half of 2020, with a beta version that has 10 players tokenized.
