tpo - Sports D³

‘Sports D³’ Secures Operating License in the EU

by MasterSherpa in Our Blog
September 28, 2020

‘Sports D³’ (‘D-Cubed Ventures OÜ’) Digital Assets Exchange Secures Operating License in the EU

For Immediate Release

TALLINN, ESTONIA — ‘Sports D³’ (‘D-Cubed Ventures OÜ’), a tokenization platform and digital assets exchange for the global sports industry, is pleased to announce that it has been granted an operating crypto-license by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Estonia.

‘Sports D³’ provides professional sports teams with an innovative alternative to raising funds by facilitating crowd-formation of capital on its DLT-powered platform, where clubs are able to digitize, securitize and sell their assets to fan-investors in the form of Security Token Offerings (STO).

With the approval of a Virtual Currency Exchange and a Virtual Currency Wallet License, ‘Sports D³’ is now a fully regulated digital assets exchange, with the capability to deliver its solutions to sports clubs and their fans in 27 European jurisdictions. This milestone marks the next step in ‘Sports D³’ development and paves the way for securing the financial intermediary status and expanding into other continents.

Gene Swinton, Founder & CEO of ‘Sports D³’ said: “There are over 400 million football fans in Europe, who are not only among the most devoted fans in the world but who also happen to score higher in their ability to invest. We are delighted to be granted this license, as it will provide fan-investors with a simple, low-cost, fiat-to-crypto ON-ramp and enable their investment activities on the SD³ platform”.

“We will continue on our mission to democratize finances in the global sports industry, starting with the European football space. By providing professional football clubs in Europe with access to capital crowd-sourced from millions of fan-investors, SD³ heralds a new era for crowd-capital and its prominent role in the development of football” concluded Mr. Swinton.

To learn more about the ‘Sports D³’ solution or pre-register for early access to the platform, click here. For investor and media inquiries email us at info@SportsD3.com

About ‘Sports D³’ (‘D-Cubed Ventures OÜ’) | www. SportsD3.com

‘Sports D³’ is a trade name used by D-Cubed Ventures OÜ, a financial and sports technology company developing a regulatory-compliant tokenization platform and digital assets exchange for the global sports industry with mid-2021 as a target completion and official launch date. SD³ platform enables crowd-formation of capital from millions of fan-investors and provides professional sports clubs and athletes with access to alternative sources of debt/equity financing via Security Tokens Offerings (STOs) on a public blockchain. ‘Sports D³’ solution stands at the intersection of the sports industry, financial markets, blockchain technology, and millions of sports fan-investors.

This project is led by a team of seasoned professionals, recent graduates from the world’s top-ranking Executive MBA program at Kellogg School of Management (USA), and supported by an international panel of advisors. With 15,000 users from 50+ countries pre-registered on the platform, strategic collaboration agreements in place with FC Shakhtar and other European clubs, SD³ strives to instill more democratic practices, as it relates to finances within the global sports industry.

Registered in Estonia #14773533 on July 29, 2019, operating under FIU license #FVT000159, issued on 14-Sept-2020.

Tags:

#football #soccer #sports #sportsdemocracy #faninvestors #footballfinance #footballbusiness #fintech #investments #crowdfunding #blockchain #dlt #crypto #digitalassets #tokenization #digitalsecurities #securitytoken #sto #sportsd3 #shakhtar

Current issues with FIFA’s Third-Party Ownership (TPO) restrictions and how SportsD³ is addressing them.

by MasterSherpa in Our Blog
September 21, 2020

Gene Swinton, CEO of Sports D³ commentary instigated by today’s story in BBC News about Chelsea’s owner Roman Abramovich.

Among 100s of messages that I receive every week, there’s always at least one asking about how to view the Sports D³ platform in the context of the Third-Party Ownership (TPO) restrictions … and this means it’s time for a thread.

In instances such as the one reported today by BBC News: “FinCEN Files: Roman Abramovich had secret stakes in rival players”, the Third-Party Ownership (TPO) DOES cast a shadow of distrust and may affect the integrity of the game.

However, we at SD³ believe that drawing investors and their capital into the world of football is a good thing. We also wish for ALL clubs and ALL the investors to have equal and indiscriminate access to financing opportunities. The current reality provides an unfair advantage to the elite clubs and their billionaire-owners.

For this reason, we view TPO as an issue ONLY when the ownership of “economic rights” of a player is heavily concentrated in the hands of select few rich investors, who are able to exercise excessive control over the performance of an asset, undermines the integrity of the game.

We believe that preventing billions of sports fans & investors from direct participation in the sports economy (such as the Transfer Market) is not only unfair to 100s of non-elite football clubs & their fans but is also a violation of the European principle of “freedom of enterprise”.

Current distortions in the industry and unequal access to resources can not be solved through the “Central Planning” function of FIFA alone (the system of Solidarity Payments) similar to how the central planning function failed the Soviets in the last century.

Our mission at Sports D³ is quite the opposite: we strive to dismantle the existing asymmetry of power & abusive industry verticals. We empower smaller fan-investors to hold a direct economic interest in their favorite team or players WITHOUT exerting influence on their performance in the field. We facilitate crowd-formation of capital to provide clubs with new funding alternatives WITHOUT interfering in their sporting affairs.

The key reason why we chose DLT (blockchain) as underlying technology is to ensure (in the spirit of TPO) the widely-distributed nature of the ownership structure of an asset. Among other reasons, of course, were its decentralized tamper-proof nature, its transparency, and better consensus-based governance.

Page 16 of the FIFA manual on TPO, section “Regarding the compatibility of article 18bis with European Union Law” it reads:

“It also does not violate the freedom to provide services (in this case, financial or investment services for football clubs) within the European market, because such services can be freely provided so long as they do not lead to the investor or funder gaining unlawful influence on the football club in question.”

With a widely distributed ownership structure in place for each asset initiated on the SD³ platform and no majority shareholder influence, the SD³ platform follows the original noble intentions of the TPO regulation. We achieve this by setting a maximum cap of TPO ownership of an asset in the range of 25-45% with no single investor holding stake greater than 5-10% at any given time.

The “Zero-influence” principle is further reinforced via the issuance of non-voting class shares or debt when structuring the offering to the investors.

Simply put, in terms of influence & control, the capital raised on the SD³ platform resembles more of a credit line from a traditional bank [than the scenario described in the above mentioned BBC article], where the only expectation from the bank as a creditor is to receive back loan principal amount + certain % interest as a profit. The influence on the sporting strategy of a club is neither intended nor it is possible.

Sports D³ delivers fairness, equal access to opportunities, and better governance that are so needed in the industry today for the ultimate benefit of the game we all love.

In fact, SD³ is the 1st platform to enable true democracy in the flow of capital in the sports industry and to uphold the European principle of “freedom of enterprise”…. all for the benefit of the smaller football clubs which are NOT owned by a billionaire.

SD³ = #SportsDemocracy!

#SportsDemocracy #FanInvestors #FIFA #UEFA #Sports #Football #soccer #SportsD3 #SD3 #digitalassets #tokenization #TPO #FootballBusiness #FootballLaw #FootballFinance

‘Sports D³’ (‘D-Cubed Ventures OÜ’) is the leader in sports democracy. SD³ is a regulatory-compliant digital marketplace for assets in the sports industry. Join with many other sports fans, pro athletes, and clubs by signing up at www.SportsD3.com

If you have questions or interest in this subject matter we will be happy to hear from you. Please send us a direct email to feedback@SportsD3.com

Fix the Money – Fix the Football!

by MasterSherpa in Our Blog
July 15, 2020

Harvard research paper on FIFA and the European football industry

Harvard University: “Fix the Money – Fix the Football!”

Sports D³: “Absence of direct mass-participation of football fans in sports economy (incl. the transfer market) perpetuates disparities & inequality between the few elite billionaire-owned clubs and the rest of the industry”.

Click here to download and read the full research paper >>> https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/cid/publications/faculty-working-papers/pitch