English Chess Forum

According to https://www.chessscotland.com/news/prop ... ge-to-scio, Chess Scotland are proposing to drop their present unincorporated status and become a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, commonly known as a SCIO.

Perhaps the Scottish legal position is different but when the ECF considered a similar move, the need to be able to pay professional players etc. for their participation and services provided a barrier impossible to overcome. As a consequence the ECF settled for just converting the legacies fund to a charity. Their discussion document doesn't appear to mention the professional players issue.

I am going to regret asking this but why is a charity not able to pay professional people, in this instance players

No idea, but found this interesting:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ance-notes

It depends entirely on the constitutional documents of the charity. There is no rule which precludes payments to professionals, though it probably makes fundraising more problematic.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 21, 2026 3:32 pm

I am going to regret asking this but why is a charity not able to pay professional people, in this instance players

A charity can pay people for providing a service but cannot pay people to their own benefit.
Paying players to go to the Olympiad would be a problem.

Offering appearance fees to play in a tournament would not be allowed but paying them the same amount to give others the benefit of their knowledge in a practical situation and do a post game analysis would allow a fee to be paid!

Alex McFarlane wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 21, 2026 4:37 pm

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 21, 2026 3:32 pm

I am going to regret asking this but why is a charity not able to pay professional people, in this instance players

A charity can pay people for providing a service but cannot pay people to their own benefit.

I sm guessing there is all kinds of exciting case law regarding the definition of a service

It is entirely normal for charities to pay people to work for the charity. It can be quite illuminating searching for the financial reports of your favourite charity.

A few years ago, a chap set up a (non-chess) charity when he was made redundant, to give him something to do, and within a few years he had an extra house, a yacht and a couple of flashy cars, so clearly it was worthwhile. Obviously, activities of charities are supposed to be monitored to ensure sufficient money goes where it should do.