My Resignation

[John McKenna]

SG's blog is very droll.
More seriously though - what was RDK's role in the FIDE-PCA split that resulted in parallel World Championships?
There might be split ECF British and RDK English championships one day.
Unless, of course, he takes behind the scenes control through the incumbent president of the ECF in the current turmoil.
But that's just a conspiracy theory.

[Alex McFarlane]

Alex McFarlane wrote:
It would appear that the ECF may have more leaks than Wales on St David's Day!

The culprit for this must be sacked before this general mud slinging gets even worse if that is possible

A more open ECF would have prevented this whole affair from festering for so long. Surely De Mooi should now be persuaded by the rest of the Board to clarify his position - or to step down if unwilling to do so.

[Jonathan Bryant]

This now refer's to an invoice as well:

What this could now be saying is that of the £ 15,600 paid by Darwin to the ECF, the ECF retained £ 3,000 for the general Congress funds / VAT and paid £ 12,600 to CJ to use as part of fees and conditions funding.

It's not an approach that's necessarily wrong but
....

It depends what you mean by 'wrong', but I beg to differ. Take a person in a public position, arrange for them to receive funds in a private capacity to give out as he sees fit and without reference to anybody else? That would entirely inappropriate whoever - you, me, anybody else - was the person concerned, but doubly so for a person who had demonstrated a history of being entirely unable to provide accounts or keep his story straight as far as numbers are concerned.

Not 'wrong' as in 'illegal', perhaps, but obviously 'wrong' as in clearly unwise and asking for trouble.

[Roger de Coverly]

Not 'wrong' as in 'illegal', perhaps, but obviously 'wrong' as in clearly unwise and asking for trouble.

If Gerry Walsh had tried walking off with sponsorship money, I expect there would have been an outcry had it become public.

There was a lot of trust in CJ back in April 2011, so the arrangement might have been approved even by Council. Which asks the question as to who did know about it and approve it? The Congress managers perhaps, but they weren't in a position to veto it.

[Alex McFarlane]

Wording things very carefully.

If the situation is as described, neither manager would have been aware of the situation in time to do anything, even to query it with the Director of Home Chess.

Returning to Carl's 'the culprit must be sacked'. I have encountered personally three examples of a breach of Board confidentiality during this fiasco. In one case it was suggested that no Board member had admitted it and that it may have been someone consulted by a Board member. In the other two cases my requests that the Board member responsible should issue an apology were rejected, instead Andrew Farthing apologised on behalf of the Board. As you can imagine I felt this a poor second best. Perhaps if firmer action had been taken on these earlier incidents people would have had more consideration for confidentiality.

[Paul Cooksey]

I am trying not to form an opinion on the specifics of this issue. I am conscious I do not have much visibility of the facts. Why a member of the board would leak to Mr Giddins escapes me. But it illustrates that there is much not in the public domain.

I found it difficult to get excited about the missing accounts for the Simul Tour. I couldn't understand why CJ promised them, but they seemed completely useless if Dr Short’s fee was confidential anyway. I'd be curious of course, but there is a well worn discussion of the difference between an interested public and the public interest

But I agree with Jonathon about the need for separation of roles. I'd be happy to have almost no visibility of how sponsorship is raised, so long as it is legal and moral. I'd even be happy to accept sponsorship arranged by RDK, so long as it came with no strings attached. But if there isn't a handover between the person raising the funds and the person distributing them, there is at least doubt, and the possibility of something worse.

I suggested separately the ECF build a paper wall between itself and the British. I think that solves this kind of issue, as well as giving clearer accountability for the running of the British.

[Roger de Coverly]

I suggested separately the ECF build a paper wall between itself and the British. I think that solves this kind of issue, as well as giving clearer accountability for the running of the British.

In the past, I would expect that's what happened. The Congress would be run at arms length and consolidated only for taxation and the audited accounts. The entry fees for instance go through the Congress Secretary rather than the Battle office. The profit or loss on the Congress is usually available as management information.

I think it's only last year that there was a conditions fund, if it can be called that, not run as part of or parallel to the main Congress funding.

[Alex McFarlane]

There has always been the possibility of private funding for players. At least one of the 'foreign' players at Canterbury was privately financed. I think Keith Arkell may also have benefitted from a private deal in the past.

Roger is fundamentally correct in that for Sheffield the Managers did not see/distribute the sponsors money. This was unusual. Indeed the sponsorship at Liverpool which was given only to English GMs certainly went through the Championship account - much to the annoyance of Scottish GMs (and their subsequent absence).

[Jonathan Bryant]

I'd be happy to have almost no visibility of how sponsorship is raised, so long as it is legal and moral.

As would I, except, if there were no clear accounts of where the money came from, how would anybody know if the money was raised in a legal and moral way or not?


I don't actually give a toss about the missing simul accounts either per se. What's important is that they - together with the conflicting figures given and the other promise to provide accounts that was not fulfilled - demonstrated clearly by the time of the British and the AGM last year that CJ was not a man in whom it would be wise to put an awful lot of trust. Especially not when we consider the inviting of a guest to open the touranment - it matters little who it was precisely - without first discussing it with the wider ECF.


The other point, of course, is that if you don't have full transparency with raising money, there's nothing to stop somebody claiming they put loads of money into a tournament when in fact they did no such thing.

Did that happen for Sheffield? We don't know do we ... because there was no transparency.

[John Upham]

I note that for the prize giving at the Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival, the ECF President chose a somewhat more sombre wardrobe. I am speculating that this choice reflected very well.

[John Upham]

I followed up a previous tweet to GMRDKOBE with:

jeupham John Upham
@Times_Chess Ray, Will you approach these persons? Who would be Event Secretary? What role for Steve Giddins?

and received

Times_Chess times chess
@jeupham not my job to appoint or even approach a team to run the british championship-i am also not sure that steve wd wish to be involved
Feb 03, 4:10 PM via web

in reply

[Jonathan Rogers]

John, I have to say that I understand very little about why you are sending these tweets to Ray Keene - exactly what sort of interesting insights are you hoping to obtain? I agree with the other Jonathan, that you energies would be better expended in addressing this furore in BCM -at least alerting readers to the current problems and outstanding issues, so that those readers who are interested to find out more are then prompted to do so (you don't really need libel lawyers if that is all you are doing, though if they are available then so much the better).

What we don't want is for the big magazines to wait until everything is crystal clear (three years?), and to say nothing beforehand.

[John McKenna]

There has been some talk of the Finance, Annual and Extraordinary meetings - here is a personal insight.
I have attended numerous AGMs (as director and shareholder) and directors' meetings but only ever one EGM.
I found it very difficult to discuss/debate single important issues in any general meeting as anyone can insist that other matters on agenda are more important and pressure of time means the meeting must move on.
At the EGM, however, things were very different because the meeting was about a single item of utmost importance. Namely, an extension to an existing residential building. The EGM was called by the board (I was not a member) to present a development plan and vote on whether to proceed with it or not.
The board had been 'advised' throughout by the building's professional management agent (an estate agent with a great many connections in the planning/building industry) who had been kept firmly in his place by a previous longstanding chairman of the board but on his departure a new chair and the board had (in my opinion) been sweet-talked into the project with promises of profits for the company that would defray future maintenance costs.
The board had already (without shareholders knowing anything, despite previous AGM) spent about £10,000 of company funds on getting that far and was proposing to borrow £1,000,000 from a national bank to finance the development.
Although there was a lower than expected shareholder turnout their proposal was -after much heated debate (there were some professionals among the shareholders who argued eloquently against) - defeated BUT the board and managing agent stayed in place as there was no sign of any replacements emerging, despite the shambles.

So, was this a really a victory for the shareholders and a defeat for those in authority?
Well, ponder this, it all happened prior to the 2008 credit-crunch and the building schedule was to be completed, in theory, about 6-9 months before it actually happened.
Had it gone ahead it might have worked but had there been delays the bursting of the property-price bubble would have left the company with large debts and the collateral was the building the shareholders (directors, too) themselves owned.

[Andrew Zigmond]

SG's blog is very droll.
More seriously though - what was RDK's role in the FIDE-PCA split that resulted in parallel World Championships?
There might be split ECF British and RDK English championships one day.
Unless, of course, he takes behind the scenes control through the incumbent president of the ECF in the current turmoil.
But that's just a conspiracy theory.

I've wondered throughout all of this exactly what Keene's game is. Whether we like it or not he is the one with the media profile and the ability to raise sponsorship - he needs the ECF even less than the ECF need him (and to say the ECF can manage perfectly well without him is an understatement).

What I would personally like to see is for every chessplayer who feels Lara and Alex have been shamefully wronged to make a special effort to come to Scarborough this year and help the event break all records. Let's throw the Spa Complex into a panic to find a second room for 600+ players (for all that they couldn't put paper in the toilets last year) and four or more titled players in the Open. That should send a message.

[IanDavis]

It would appear that the ECF may have more leaks than Wales on St David's Day!

The culprit for this must be sacked before this general mud slinging gets even worse if that is possible

That would suppose that they hadn't already been sacked. The information divulged seems to be in the public interest so far.