Post
by Craig Pritchett » Mon Sep 30, 2013 11:16 pm
I note the reference above to sundry international players, including passing Scots, in next weekend's 4ncl rapidplays. Sadly, as a Scot, however, I can indeed confirm that I'll be charged the £6 fee for "non-ECF members" for the privilege of crossing the border to take part.
Actually I'm informed that it's £6 for EACH day (Team and Individual). Nice one ECF! But who came up with this extremely odd policy?
I'm sure that Gawain Jones, Mark Hebden, Danny Gormally and other ECF members of slightly lesser ilk, who played in the recent Scottish International Open, at zilch additional charge, as "non-Chess Scotland members", will happily club together to buy me a few pints to compensate for the ECF's, to my mind quite bizarre tax on "foreigners". Isn't this policy just ridiculous, not to say little more than daylight robbery?
Can anyone name any other FIDE member country that levies such a charge? Do ECF members get charged equivalent £6 fees when they toddle off to play in any other countries, e.g. anywhere else in Europe? Foreign visitors, moreover, generally have to invest more time and cost than host nationals to play in foreign events, so what's the logic in loading them with an extra charge (that, as in ECF events, can only be avoided by taking out membership of a SECOND FIDE member country that isn't the slightest use to them)?
I live in the heart of old Enlightment Scotland, near to the birthplace of that greatest of philosophers, David Hume. I have a passing acquaintance with logic, I hope. Maybe I'm just missing a trick here. Can someone enlighten me as to the point of this policy, or at least relieve me from a sense that I may simply be having my pocket picked ... as a "foreigner".
On second thoughts, maybe the ECF in a muddled sort of way is trying to encourage me to vote "Yes" in next year's Scottish Independence Referendum.