Kasparov vs Ilyumzhinov: the FIDE Presidency battle begins

[I S Dobronauteanu]

Dear chess fans,
As some days ago I was mentioned in this forum by Nigel Short, in relation to a meeting with Nigel Freeman in Bucharest last October, I would like to put things right.
Here are some clarifications about that meeting: we did not have beers, I had a coffee and NF had one juice (or water?!). He was not gleeful, he was rather tired because of his international trips. I am not only a delegate of Romanian Chess Federation, but also European Chess Union vice-president. So, what kind of FIDE plans, one can imagine we could then discuss – the FIDE Executive Director and ECU vice-president? The idea related to Nigel Short (yes, it was one), was one personal belief of Nigel Freeman, something like, even if the vote is of course secret, “Nigel will vote only if his opinion is the same as the English Chess Federation’s decision”, in other words, he will not put himself in the situation to vote if he will not agree the ECF decision, whatever that will be. I hope I expressed myself clear, but this was the topic in our discussion which looked nice and fair for me, and which is in opposite of what Nigel Short unfortunately believes it was discussed.
I am sorry for revealing this private discussion and that sort of gossip, but it would be a pity now not to clarify this topic and not to put things right and respectfully for Nigel Short and Nigel Freeman respectively.
All the best!
Ion Serban Dobronauteanu

[Roger de Coverly]

Of course I agree with you in principle, I just cannot see the devastation that you constantly claim.

I would refuse to enter a tournament with zero time default, fortunately that isn't an problem since no British organisers adopt this practice. But it was a close run thing, was it not, with Kirsan backing this? I wouldn't put my name forward for possible selection for the England Senior squad for this reason. Given the number of lower rated French players, the European Championships in Aix could have been considered as a chess holiday. But not with zero time defaults.

It's plausible that the tax on arbiters and the the requirement for a "Licensed" arbiter to be present at matches will result in fewer tournaments or leagues being FIDE rated. Mostly though, the threat of a revolt prevents some of the more dubious initiatives going ahead. I might have been inconvenienced in entering my first ever FIDE rated tournament had the current regulations been in place as it wasn't in England.

I never knew whether I thought one minute increments were better than thirty second ones, but FIDE contrived to abolish them for a while and they don't seem to have been reinstated.

But it's a constant drip drip of petty regulation, which the FIDE establishment seem to encourage and National Federations, or the larger ones at least have to fight off. I agree that quite a bit of it is down to Leong. Whether the ECF should support the Kirsan team purely for the result of getting rid of Leong is perhaps a question.

[Roger de Coverly]

The idea related to Nigel Short (yes, it was one), was one personal belief of Nigel Freeman, something like, even if the vote is of course secret, “Nigel will vote only if his opinion is the same as the English Chess Federation’s decision”, in other words, he will not put himself in the situation to vote if he will not agree the ECF decision, whatever that will be.

Conspiracy theorists would have it that Paulson was parachuted in by FIDE in order to remove or restrict Nigel's anti-Kirsan campaigning. Why else would he express a sudden desire to become ECF President? It does presume that FIDE are unaware of the intrinsic hostility amongst English chess players towards the current FIDE establishment that the "right" person as President could make any difference. The ECF Boards in 2006 and 2010 found little difficulty in agreeing to support the challenger in both cases and to the general acceptance of players in general and voters in particular.

[John McKenna]

Unlike Roger, above, I do not believe that Andrew Paulson was "parachuted in". It is more as if he came by submarine but in the guise of a shipwrecked American mariner. When subject to rigorous questioning by the Home Guard unit of Captain Mainwearing & Sergeant Wilson, to whom, he gave enough right answers (by rewriting the script) to pass muster - despite the protestations and objections of Corporal Jones & Private Fraser - and even be promoted to leadership of their entire organisation! Don't panic! (It's too late for panic now.)

[NickFaulks]

Of course I agree with you in principle, I just cannot see the devastation that you constantly claim.

I would refuse to enter a tournament with zero time default, fortunately that isn't an problem since no British organisers adopt this practice. But it was a close run thing, was it not, with Kirsan backing this? I wouldn't put my name forward for possible selection for the England Senior squad for this reason. Given the number of lower rated French players, the European Championships in Aix could have been considered as a chess holiday. But not with zero time defaults.

It's plausible that the tax on arbiters and the the requirement for a "Licensed" arbiter to be present at matches will result in fewer tournaments or leagues being FIDE rated. Mostly though, the threat of a revolt prevents some of the more dubious initiatives going ahead. I might have been inconvenienced in entering my first ever FIDE rated tournament had the current regulations been in place as it wasn't in England.

I never knew whether I thought one minute increments were better than thirty second ones, but FIDE contrived to abolish them for a while and they don't seem to have been reinstated.

But it's a constant drip drip of petty regulation, which the FIDE establishment seem to encourage and National Federations, or the larger ones at least have to fight off. I agree that quite a bit of it is down to Leong. Whether the ECF should support the Kirsan team purely for the result of getting rid of Leong is perhaps a question.

England Seniors may have been deprived of your talents on spurious grounds. You should check the regulations of the European Senior individual and team events.

No, compulsory zero tolerance for all events was never going to happen. There is a self-righting mechanism, and it worked. By the way, if this was the will of small, Kirsan supporting federations, how come Bermuda opposed it in Dresden and England did not?

The European Championship is possibly a sound point, although this is intended to be a prestige event, not a holiday.

The impetus for the arbiters' licensing scheme came from the their own commission, not from above. It was designed as a way to increase the income of professional arbiters. I would have liked the PB to squash it, but the arbiters are a very powerful pressure group and that was never going to happen.

The player licensing was introduced in Leong's usual heavy handed manner, and without proper planning. All the same, something needed to be done ( and sill does ). I know both as a rating officer and a QC official that too many players drop into the wrong federation, and it's the devil of a job to sort it out. Then people complain that their ratings are wrong.

I don't understand your point about one minute increments at all. We thought that they might be popular, but chief arbiters are an unimaginative bunch, and seem to assume that 30 seconds is the only way to go. Don't get Stewart started on that one! For FIDE's own events, 30 seconds has indeed become the standard, but the popular criticism is that FIDE events are not sufficiently standardised, rather than the opposite.

Your biggest concern seems to be that far worse things might have come to pass if wiser counsels had not prevailed. But they did! That's how the system is supposed to work.

PS Reading through this, it seems as though I think nothing in FIDE is broken. I don't, I just think you are latching onto the wrong things. I am troubled by a careless attitude at the top which, for instance, allows a GM title to be given after the PB has specifically rejected it. I am troubled that the PB, which is barred by the Statutes from altering the Laws and the Titles and Ratings Regulations, feels free to do so anyway. However, it is quite clear that the view of this forum is that such issues are boring, so I shall not go on.

[Jonathan Rogers]

PS Reading through this, it seems as though I think nothing in FIDE is broken. I don't, I just think you are latching onto the wrong things. I am troubled by a careless attitude at the top which, for instance, allows a GM title to be given after the PB has specifically rejected it. I am troubled that the PB, which is barred by the Statutes from altering the Laws and the Titles and Ratings Regulations, feels free to do so anyway. However, it is quite clear that the view of this forum is that such issues are boring, so I shall not go on.

I find these issues to be of some interest, and I trust that others do too - perhaps some of us are silent because we don't know much about them ourselves and can't think what to add.

[Roger de Coverly]

Your biggest concern seems to be that far worse things might have come to pass if wiser counsels had not prevailed. But they did! That's how the system is supposed to work.

No thanks to the President though, who is quite happy to inflict his own prejudices on events he doesn't play in. Cutting games down to three or four hours may, or may not be suitable for live television coverage, but a point of complete irrelevance to amateur players who would want to set the playing period by reference to the time available to play. It's not much of an argument to say that stupid ideas get rescinded, they should never be proposed in the first place.

Whether the ECF Delegate in Dresden was in favour of zero time defaults is unknown. He was however removed from office at the next ECF election. Kirsan though spoke in favour of the motion, citing Karpov turning up late during the Lausanne match against Anand and boards at Olympiads with no players present. A bit of common sense would have told him that empty boards were down to security arrangements for gaining access to the venues and a bit of history reminded him that Fischer in particular was often a few minutes late in 1972. Why Karpov was late is unknown, but the ten minutes of flashing in your face must be annoying for your concentration so little effective time is lost.

Isn't the story that delegates in the audience were eager to please their President and would have passed the rule had not Makropoulos sensing the potential disaster moved the meeting on? I think the disaster would actually have been for FIDE as it could have prompted a walk out by larger Federations unwilling or unable to run their internal events with such a rule.

[PeterFarr]

PS Reading through this, it seems as though I think nothing in FIDE is broken. I don't, I just think you are latching onto the wrong things. I am troubled by a careless attitude at the top which, for instance, allows a GM title to be given after the PB has specifically rejected it. I am troubled that the PB, which is barred by the Statutes from altering the Laws and the Titles and Ratings Regulations, feels free to do so anyway. However, it is quite clear that the view of this forum is that such issues are boring, so I shall not go on.

I find these issues to be of some interest, and I trust that others do too - perhaps some of us are silent because we don't know much about them ourselves and can't think what to add.

Me too, I find Nick's contributions informative and interesting, but I don't know enough to add much to the debate.

[NickFaulks]

Thanks, I'll heep hacking away then. The road from here to Tromso will be interesting even though, as a dispassionate bookmaker, I think Kasparov / Leong needs a couple of snookers. It's possible to see where they might come from.

[Roger de Coverly]

I don't know whether anything should be read into this, but the latest ECU circular available at http://www.englishchess.org.uk/wp-conte ... ER-144.pdf devotes several pages to repeating the claims about Agon's part ownership by Kirsan. Quite what this has to do with news about chess in Europe I'm not sure but I believe the ECF President may appear on an opposite slate for ECU elections to that of the ECU President. If ECU followed the same election process as the ECF, "none of the above" should be a clear favourite.

Neither of the presumed candidates for the ECU election seem particular pro-Kirsan. At times the ECU president seems something of a one-man opposition or dissident, whilst his rival was instrumental in the protest about Vice Presidents.

There's now a statement by the Kasparov campaign at
http://kasparov2014.com/2014/02/03/stat ... ide-power/

Are we at all surprised by these acts of conflict of interest when we see the Memorandum of Understanding whereby FIDE President Ilyumzhinov and Agon put their signatures on a document securing huge financial benefits for themselves and other high-ranking FIDE officers and employees? Those signatures speak more effectively than their thousands of words of denials and attacks.

All valid stuff, the problem is that the accounting forensic evidence uncovered without much difficulty by Chris Rice and published on this forum doesn't support the claim of profit sharing using Agon by Kirsan. That doesn't rule out a more subtle and hidden means of achieving the aims set out in the signed draft agreement.

[Paul McKeown]

PS Reading through this, it seems as though I think nothing in FIDE is broken. I don't, I just think you are latching onto the wrong things. I am troubled by a careless attitude at the top which, for instance, allows a GM title to be given after the PB has specifically rejected it. I am troubled that the PB, which is barred by the Statutes from altering the Laws and the Titles and Ratings Regulations, feels free to do so anyway. However, it is quite clear that the view of this forum is that such issues are boring, so I shall not go on.

That is simply yet more utter crap. One of the many reasons that chess players in England - and wider in the Western world - loathe Ilyumzhinov is just this. His arbitrary rule, often to the disservice of chess players, carried out regardless of any FIDE's regulations that in law should limit his powers as president. Of course there are many other reasons for Western disdain of Ilyumzhinov, including some extremely bizarre beliefs and his personal history as a ballot box stuffing bloody kleptocrat and his public support of a host of murderous tyrants.

Frankly, if FIDE delegates (in exchange for the necessary wherewithal) continue to return him as president, despite his history of riding roughshod over whatever constitutional frame that gives FIDE form, then FIDE might as well eventually be bankrupted by lawsuit, in order that something genuinely democratic and accountable may arise from its ashes.

[Stewart Reuben]

Jonathan, Peter. If you are really interested in the history of these matters, then you need to go back to 1993. It was then the FIDE PB failed to follow due process in stripping Kasparov and Short of their ratings. That caused David Anderton to leave the Executive Board which removed one of the most valuable voices of reason.
1994 and 1995 they failed to follow their statutes and so on. That led directly to Kirsan in 1995.
If you really want that information, it should be a separate thread. The current discussion is about the 2014 FIDE Presidential race. It isn't too late for a third candidate to appear, although I think it unlikely.
What is clear is that people on this forum don't realise that the General Assembly feels itself above the statutes. Kevin O'Connell told me this over 20 years ago, but I couldn't quite believe it. Due to the lawsuits brought, the current PB is less likely to break those statutes without notice, at least about elections. But Nick is right in saying they still do so. Ignatius thinks they only matter if he agrees with them.
Getting rid of me from the QC was against the statutes.

[JustinHorton]

There's now a statement by the Kasparov campaign at
http://kasparov2014.com/2014/02/03/stat ... ide-power/

Are we at all surprised by these acts of conflict of interest when we see the Memorandum of Understanding whereby FIDE President Ilyumzhinov and Agon put their signatures on a document securing huge financial benefits for themselves and other high-ranking FIDE officers and employees? Those signatures speak more effectively than their thousands of words of denials and attacks.

For some reason a draft agreement is not important when it's paying money directly to Ignatius Leong, but something completely different when it's an agreement between Paulson and Kirsan.

What a weird mirror-quality the contest has taken on.

[Angus French]

There's now a statement by the Kasparov campaign at
http://kasparov2014.com/2014/02/03/stat ... ide-power/

Are we at all surprised by these acts of conflict of interest when we see the Memorandum of Understanding whereby FIDE President Ilyumzhinov and Agon put their signatures on a document securing huge financial benefits for themselves and other high-ranking FIDE officers and employees? Those signatures speak more effectively than their thousands of words of denials and attacks.

For some reason a draft agreement is not important when it's paying money directly to Ignatius Leong, but something completely different when it's an agreement between Paulson and Kirsan.

What a weird mirror-quality the contest has taken on.

On the Kasparov statement:
1. I have seen: not a Memorandum of Understanding but a Memorandum. The signatories to the Memorandum were Andrew Paulson (rather than Agon) and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
2. A Memorandum of Understanding cannot "[secure] huge financial benefits". It has no legal status.

Shame on Kasparov for issuing a misleading statement.

I don't consider the memorandum signed by Andrew Paulson and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to be a draft agreement. I see it as a proposal*. It was signed by representatives of only two of (I count) six affected parties. It was quickly rejected (according to both Andrew Paulson and Georgios Makropolous; we also know that as of 1 Jan 2013 all shares in Agon were owned by Andrew Paulson)... I commented earlier on the the agreement between FIDE and Agon which is published on the FIDE website and which came into effect in February 2012. To my mind the contract looks one-sided and weighted very much in FIDE's favour.

- There is a clause (in section 5) requiring Agon to make an up front payment of $500,000 (whether or not that payment has been made: who knows);
- FIDE gets money for each event (see 3.2.(b).(ii)) - equal to 20% or 25% of the prize money fund;
- FIDE gets money each year from 2016 (see 4) - between 30% and 55% of "Adjusted Gross Sponsorship Revenue" or 500,000 Euros, whichever is greater.

The draft agreement between Garry Kasparov and Ignatius Leong, on the other hand, was superseded by an actual agreement with terms which were not dissimilar. It amounts, in my view, to a money-for-votes contract.

[Edit]*To support my contention:

We trust you will find this scheme acceptable. We are extremely interested in working with FIDE and have done a great deal of work to conclude agreements with key contractors. We are willing to discuss other possible variants, including an initial model, in which all financial risk would lie on our side.

[/Edit]

[Stewart Reuben]

Angus, is it possible you are being Anglo-centric? The difference between Memorandum and Memorandum of Understanding my have a different meaning in different countries.