English Arbiters to suffer???

[Roger de Coverly]

Oh surely there is more substance to it than that - any side which has more people on the ticket than the other must be at an advantage.

This all took place after the Presidential elections though. The multitude of VPs are just equivalents of non-Exec directors, are they not? Even Karpov was offered one.

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6715

After the results of the election were announced, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov invited Anatoly Karpov to join his administration of FIDE as Vice-President.

(edit) Here's the contemporary report in TWIC - six candidates per slate

http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/chessnews/p ... candidates

But we can recall the European vote

Code: Select all

I.Continental President for Europe:
1.	Mr. Silvio Danailov	Bulgaria
2.	Dr. Robert von Weinzacker	Germany
3.	Mr. Ali-Nihat Yazici	Turkey

[Angus French]

The multitude of VPs are just equivalents of non-Exec directors, are they not?

I would guess probably not. This provides what I think is a good summary of the role of the NED.

[Andrew Farthing]

In the last hour, a formal letter of protest over the actions of the President of the Turkish Chess Federation has been sent to the FIDE Secretariat, asking for the FIDE Presidential Board and Ethics Commission to consider this matter urgently and to demand that the Olympiad organisers be required to reconsider their arbiter appointments, this time in an impartial and non-discriminatory fashion.

The letter was prepared by the ECF and formally supported by the French, German, Swiss, Ukrainian and US chess federations. The ECF is grateful to each of these organisations for their support and for responding so quickly to its efforts to achieve a robust, coordinated response.

It is utterly unacceptable when appointing officials to a FIDE event such as the Olympiad to discriminate on political grounds, based on an objection to the legitimate actions of national federations in another sphere. The ECF and the other signatories to the letter are demanding that FIDE take prompt action to address this outrageous action on the part of one of its Vice Presidents.

Further information will appear on the ECF website in due course.

[Mick Norris]

Well done Andrew

[Paul Cooksey]

Well done Andrew

I agree. Good to see the ECF working with the other Federations and taking a leading role.

I hope this will be enough, certainly the right way to start.

[NickFaulks]

How many arbiters from each country are being affected by this? How many from England?

One of the comments left at the chessvibes article was a bit strange: "Still I think in today's financial times it's a real organizational achievement to be able to organize a tournament like the chess olympics where some 250 teams have food and lodging for free for 11, 12 days." When reading that, I thought it must be wrong. I was under the impression that the food and lodging had to be paid for by each team (as well as travel costs). Is that right?

No, food and lodging are provided. There are complaints this time that team captains are not being offered a single room, although in compensation delegates and heads of delegation are. There is an unexpected fee of 100 euros per person, annoying but not huge in context.

[NickFaulks]

I am not a born revolutionary like Roger. But what we get from FIDE seems very limited. Their rating system is creaking, and their titles devalued. I might be more comfortable with a European Federation, certainly if Russia was in it.

The FIDE rating system is creaking? Please explain.

[Roger de Coverly]

Presumably a better formula exists than that of FIDE ("one junket monkey one vote") or that of the ICC ("if you aren't India forget it").

team captains are not being offered a single room, although in compensation delegates and heads of delegation are.

I suppose we know who are more important in the eyes of the Turkish organisers or FIDE.

The arbiters seem to be getting a good deal, when invited

5* Stars Hotels
Titanic Airport Hotel, (Only Arbiters)

It's a far cry from Harry Lamb's "Escape from Elista".

(edit) Here's the tale as posted to this forum
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... &start=200 (/edit)

[NickFaulks]

5* Stars Hotels
Titanic Airport Hotel, (Only Arbiters)

"It's a far cry from Harry Lamb's "Escape from Elista"."

Yes, but when we voted for Istanbul we thought it would be held in the city like 2000, which was excellent, not in venues scattered around the airport. This isn't going to be a great social event.

[Sean Hewitt]

How many arbiters from each country are being affected by this? How many from England?

It depends. Each country can nominate one to their Contintental federation if they wish, who then have to whittle the nominations down to 10. The ECU nominated the following

AUT - IA Manfred Mussnig
BUL - IA Rumen Angelov
DEN - IA Lars-Henrik Bech Hansen
ENG - IA Lara Barnes
GER - IA Klaus Deventer (IA Markus Keller)**
GEO - IA Margalita Tandashvili
NOR - The name will be announced subsequently*
ROU - IA Elisabeta Polihroniade
SRB - IA Petar Katanic - Vujic
SUI - IA Albert Baumberger

http://www.europechess.net/index.php?op ... tid=1:news

So no French arbiter for example but there is an ENG, GEO and SUI.

In addition, the Association of Chess Professionals also get 10 nominations. I don't know their list sent to FIDE, but I do know that I was on it.

[David Sedgwick]

It depends. Each country can nominate one to their Contintental federation if they wish, who then have to whittle the nominations down to 10. The ECU nominated the following

AUT - IA Manfred Mussnig
BUL - IA Rumen Angelov
DEN - IA Lars-Henrik Bech Hansen
ENG - IA Lara Barnes
GER - IA Klaus Deventer (IA Markus Keller)**
GEO - IA Margalita Tandashvili
NOR - The name will be announced subsequently*
ROU - IA Elisabeta Polihroniade
SRB - IA Petar Katanic - Vujic
SUI - IA Albert Baumberger

http://www.europechess.net/index.php?op ... tid=1:news

So no French arbiter for example but there is an ENG, GEO and SUI.

In addition, the Association of Chess Professionals also get 10 nominations. I don't know their list sent to FIDE, but I do know that I was on it.

Sean, there is also GER and you've omitted in your post the explanation of the ** as given in the link, viz:

"** If Mr. Deventer becomes a higher-ranked Arbiter in the team of Arbiters, Mr. Keller will be recommended for an Arbiter."

IA Klaus Deventer is a Councillor on the FIDE Arbiters' Commission, which makes him one of the top five. He was an excellent candidate for a senior position, but as things currently are he won't even be a Match Arbiter.

So overall four of the ten ECU nominees, who had come through a tough selection process, stand to be excluded.

[Stewart Reuben]

Andrw Zigmund >Stewart Reuben was the one who removed Ms Hurst from her position as editor of ChessMoves (granted, there was a case against using an in house magazine to criticise players and officials but when the editor is taking a stand for human rights trying to gag her is a rather graceless thing to do).<

I was chairman of the BCF at the time and effectively Chief Executive.

The reason Sarah was removed from her position as Editor of ChessMoves had nothing whatsoever to do with her stance against Ilyumzhinov and her stance about our not playing in the Olympiad. She was invited to a BCF Board Meeting, her views listened to and the decision was made democratically to go to Elista in 1998. She made allegations against Ilyumzhinov that have never been substantiated. She also said the Kalmykians didn't want us there. I did go and I doubt all those children could have been brainwashed or reheared into pretending they were happy to see the Olympiad there.

The reason was 1. She was a loose cannon who had exposed the BCF to the possibility of a libel case by a British citizen. Repetition of that concern could only have been solved by my censoring the magazine every month; other officers had failed to notice the problem. 2. The federation needed to save money and my volunteering to edit the magazine free for a period enabled me to pressurise directors into taking cuts in their own budgets.

Somebody commented that I was party to the ECF decision to sue FIDE. That is perfectly true. I backed some elected officers who believed this was the best course of action. That certainly included Nigel and CJ. I didn't personally agree as I believe going to law is nearly always pointless. It is also true that I have travelled on FIDE business 4 times this year and will be doing so again to Turkey.

The purpose of this court case is that 3 FIDE Vice Presidents were elected against the FIDE Statutes. The ironic thing is that all 3 volunteered to stand down as VPs. This was led by Ali, who stated his willingness publicly in Krakow and had done so before. When I asked David Jarrett, why not following the FIDE Statutes? He responded, 'We aren't going to be bullied into doing so.'

Again ironically, until Ali's pronouncement about the arbiters I had thought him the best chess organizer I have ever met. And, yes, that did include me.

[Andrew Zigmond]

Andrw Zigmund >Stewart Reuben was the one who removed Ms Hurst from her position as editor of ChessMoves (granted, there was a case against using an in house magazine to criticise players and officials but when the editor is taking a stand for human rights trying to gag her is a rather graceless thing to do).<

I was chairman of the BCF at the time and effectively Chief Executive.

The reason Sarah was removed from her position as Editor of ChessMoves had nothing whatsoever to do with her stance against Ilyumzhinov and her stance about our not playing in the Olympiad. She was invited to a BCF Board Meeting, her views listened to and the decision was made democratically to go to Elista in 1998. She made allegations against Ilyumzhinov that have never been substantiated. She also said the Kalmykians didn't want us there. I did go and I doubt all those children could have been brainwashed or reheared into pretending they were happy to see the Olympiad there.

The reason was 1. She was a loose cannon who had exposed the BCF to the possibility of a libel case by a British citizen. Repetition of that concern could only have been solved by my censoring the magazine every month; other officers had failed to notice the problem. 2. The federation needed to save money and my volunteering to edit the magazine free for a period enabled me to pressurise directors into taking cuts in their own budgets.

Thank you for the clarification. Obviously I'm trying to recall details from almost fifteen years ago but if memory suffices she certainly equated her sacking with her stance on the issue and the chess publication that devoted a lot of space to the controversy seemed sympathetic to her position. That said I also remember that she sent a letter to at least one of the country's top players pretty much threatening to use her position as a journalist to unleash bad publicity on him if he played in Elista; that was overstepping the mark.

Whatever her faults she did seem to see Ilyumzhinov for what he was from the beginning and called for a boycott long before anybody else did. Incidentally Raymond Keene on Twitter has joined those calling for a boycott; if nothing else this controversy seems to be bringing together a lot of people who have been at loggerheads for far too long.

Speaking of loose cannons I did make a rather flippant comment earlier on this thread which ended up cutting a bit deeper than I intended; even though it was never aimed at the person who took offence. I could quibble over the context but ultimately I wrote it and touch move doesn't just happen over the board. The ECF board doesn't get everything right but on this occasion they appear to be doing so and deserve respect for that. More to the point nobody else is currently offering to do it better.

[JustinHorton]

She made allegations against Ilyumzhinov that have never been substantiated.

It is actually quite hard to substantiate allegations entirely when the subject of those allegations is the ruler of a country and essentially in charge of the system of criminal investigation.

[Roger de Coverly]

the chess publication that devoted a lot of space to the controversy seemed sympathetic to her position.

This one perhaps

http://www.kingpinchess.net/?p=410

The issue of five appointed vice-presidents isn't new. From the article, writing about events in 2002

Phil Haley of the U.S. Chess Federation’s FIDE Advisory Committee was displeased by these developments. Sand kindly forwarded me his response. “It appears to me that the proposal in essence gives President Ilyumzhinov complete control of FIDE at least until 2006 as he will have selected his own slate and secondly will have appointed five vice-presidents of his own choosing including Ignatius and Morten,”

Phil Haley is Canadian rather than American.