English Chess Forum

Alex McFarlane wrote:Are you now agreeing that Lara was deselected? That surely is different from not being selected.

I don't think that Lara or I were ever deselected. We were nominated by the ECU and ACP respectively, and there was an expectation that that nomination would lead to selection which normally would be the case) but we weren't selected until we received invitation letters which, of course, never came. All unfortunate, especially for Lara for whom this is the second time that this has happened, but there it is.

"Ludimus effigiem belli ... " (We play the likeness of war ...). So begins Vida's poem. Some of us want war to be confined to the chessboard. I don't think I would ever want to join a chess organisation which takes legal action against another. It is hard to imagine anything further removed from the needs of chess players at the grass roots level, and at a time when they are being asked for a sharply increased contribution.

When it comes to cast-iron guarantees FIDE seems more astute than the ECF in that it makes use of escrow bank accounts for the lodging of deposits and guarantees rather than written promises to pay.
Then again, perhaps FIDE has no trustworthy friends when it comes to the provision of funds, only impecunious ones to whom they provide funds for the support of unconstitutional 'formalities'.
(Similar circumstances apply in other global bodies - the International Whaling Commission, for example.)

I am simply shocked by the amounts of money involved on both sides.

Whenever we (members of the ECF) actually have a need, we are always told "sorry, there is no money..."

Membership has to go up because " sorry, we have no money...."

Congress fees are up because " sorry, we have no money, our costs are up (because of membership going up and other stuff) etc etc"

Yet we seem to have hundreds of thousands to pay for legal fees on a case which we have now been told we had an unlikely chance of ever winning.

I do understand that there is a private individual who has very kindly agreed to foot the bill, but the question remains, if there was somebody within the ECF who did manage to persuade the aforesaid individual to part with wads of cash, could they not have spent it on something more useful and actually beneficial to all rather than on a very risky bet which seems to involve a lot of sacrificing by this rich individual and has a detrimental effect on our standing now with FIDE in general?

I still don't see any details on the main ECF web site?

Krishna Shiatis wrote: Yet we seem to have hundreds of thousands to pay for legal fees on a case which we have now been told we had an unlikely chance of ever winning.

I do understand that there is a private individual who has very kindly agreed to foot the bill, but the question remains, if there was somebody within the ECF who did manage to persuade the aforesaid individual to part with wads of cash, could they not have spent it on something more useful and actually beneficial to all rather than on a very risky bet which seems to involve a lot of sacrificing by this rich individual and has a detrimental effect on our standing now with FIDE in general?

I think it is the other way around. The ECF didn't persuade the individual to part with their cash - rather they asked the ECF to front the action they wanted to take but couldn't because they were not a national federation. That individual is Garry Kasparov.

So, in all fairness (and assuming that the guarantees hold good) this won't affect the ECF or it's finances. The money would never have been available for anything in England other than the litigation.

Carl Hibbard wrote:I still don't see any details on the main ECF web site?

Oh ye of little faith!

Isn't it obvious that Andrew is busy drafting a reply on behalf of Messrs Short and De Mooi which actually shows that the result was an overwhelming success for the Federation and listing the ways that English chess will benefit from it.

By the way I accept that the ECF shouldn't have taken legal action to get arbiter representation at the Olympiad but I still maintain that it would have been more appropriate to have done so then than on the ocassion the Board did. If the ECF was looking for a moral crusade to embark on that had a lot more merit. Of course it wouldn't have been necessary if the Federation had gauged the feelings of the membership first.

Sean,
I think Krishna has a valid point in a way.
The way to defeat the current FIDE administration is not to fight trivil legal cases but to promote chess in a much more worthwhile way. If the Kasparov Foundation spent shed loads of money promoting both grass roots and top level chess then it could possibly gain the support from the countries where it is needed.

Sean Hewitt wrote:

Krishna Shiatis wrote: Yet we seem to have hundreds of thousands to pay for legal fees on a case which we have now been told we had an unlikely chance of ever winning.

I do understand that there is a private individual who has very kindly agreed to foot the bill, but the question remains, if there was somebody within the ECF who did manage to persuade the aforesaid individual to part with wads of cash, could they not have spent it on something more useful and actually beneficial to all rather than on a very risky bet which seems to involve a lot of sacrificing by this rich individual and has a detrimental effect on our standing now with FIDE in general?

I think it is the other way around. The ECF didn't persuade the individual to part with their cash - rather they asked the ECF to front the action they wanted to take but couldn't because they were not a national federation. That individual is Garry Kasparov.

So, in all fairness (and assuming that the guarantees hold good) this won't affect the ECF or it's finances. The money would never have been available for anything in England other than the litigation.

It is good to be told this kind of information - why is this not stated publicly on the ECF website?

I think the key part of what you just said is

"assuming the guarantees hold good...."

If they do not, then we are in big doggy doo-doos n'est pas?

Actually I would have still asked Garry to fund something in the UK in return for what we are doing on the premise that he has cash to spend on chess and it would have been a far better way to spend his money.

I am sure that somebody could have put the question to him. Who knows? He might have agreed. I am sure if you were to ask him now, whether he would choose to pay lawyers or help his friends in England with all this money, I think his answer would be to help us.

Alex McFarlane wrote:Sean,
I think Krishna has a valid point in a way.
The way to defeat the current FIDE administration is not to fight trivil legal cases but to promote chess in a much more worthwhile way. If the Kasparov Foundation spent shed loads of money promoting both grass roots and top level chess then it could possibly gain the support from the countries where it is needed.

I agree completely. Also, if he funded our grassroots because we support him politically, then the other nations would have probably lined up to suddenly support him (I have no doubt).

I know this seems a little sneaky, but it is a far better way of improving things all round.

Hopefully this post will remain until after the October AGM when I may be able to say I told you so.

Don't be surprised if Mr De-Mooi and Mr Short don't turn up at the AGM but send in reports saying they have managed to get a lot of sponsorship for the 2013 British, the anniversary event.
Some of the rabbits in the headlights will once again be star struck and be happy to forget Sheffield, FIDE legal action and anything else to get the loot.
All the current pages of discussion will be meaningless.

That said perhaps the members of council who have good sense will not be clouded in their judgement and recognise who should be helped on their way out. Laras event has shown that major sponsorship is not needed because the genuine grass root players, of whom there are many,and the all round good egg GM's and IM's who are supporting it this year will support next years event without loads of cash being offered as some kind of sweetener.

Ernie Lazenby wrote:Hopefully this post will remain until after the October AGM when I may be able I told you so.

Don't be surprised if Mr De-Mooi and Mr Short don't turn up at the AGM but send in reports saying they have managed to get a lot of sponsorship for the 2013 British, the anniversary event.
Some of the rabbits in the headlights will once again be star struck and be happy to forget Sheffield, FIDE legal action and anything else to get the loot.
All the current pages of discussion will be meaningless.

That said perhaps the members of council who have good sense will not be clouded in their judgement and recognise who should be helped on their way out. Laras event has shown that major sponsorship is not needed because the genuine grass root players, of whom there are many,and all round good egg GM's and IM's will support next years event without loads of cash being offered as some kind of sweetener.

As the main reason your posts don't remain on the forum is that you yourself have them deleted, I'm quoting this to make sure it does.

If we want more influance within FIDE we have to think more long term.We need to start cultivating friendships with people within FIDE who have influance,We need to get ourselves voted or selected onto the committes.
It would be a lot more effective than fighting court cases
We have the candidates tournament in London next year so FIDE obv rates London as a good city to hold events.
We need to use that event to start building good will with FIDE

Cj and Nigel need to attend the AGM to answer the difficult questions that will be heading there way.If they do not attend we should vote for other candidates if others stand against them if nobody stands then we need to vote for none of the above.

William is correct however that won't happen while we have a rep who has a long history of conflict with FIDE and who was keen to support Kasparov this time an individual who just happens to be another who has /had problems with FIDE. (remember the breakaway world championships)

It will be interesting what spin Andrew can put on the press release notifying that the ECF lost the court case.