ECF loses case

[Sean Hewitt]

@Alex / Krishna -- I don't think we are disagreeing. I was making the point that I don't think there was a choice between spending the money on the legal case or some worthwhile chess project instead. Had the ECF said no (and I think that they should have said no) Kasparov and his money would have found another federation to front his legal action.

[Mick Norris]

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.

Krishna

Kasparov is putting a lot of time and money into his version of Chess for Schools, which I would imagine is part of a charm offensive with a view to getting the FIDE Presidency - although it is obviously a worthwhile thing to do

We asked him to do a simul when he was visiting Manchester for the Turing conference, and he offered us 40% off his usual price i.e. "only" $30,000 net of tax

If you think that the money on the Court case would have been spent on English chess, I fear you are mistaken

[Peter D Williams]

@Alex / Krishna -- I don't think we are disagreeing. I was making the point that I don't think there was a choice between spending the money on the legal case or some worthwhile chess project instead. Had the ECF said no (and I think that they should have said no) Kasparov and his money would have found another federation to front his legal action.

There is always a choice

[Alex McFarlane]

I was just saying that Kasparov would have been better spending the money promoting chess. At no point did I say that I thought that it would be likely he did.
(Is this the first forum arguement tht has everyone in agreement!!)

Returning to the topic. Is there actually anyone on this forum who thinks that the ECF were right to start the legal action?

[Peter D Williams]

Hope I haven't messed up the thread - if I have Carl please can you fix it

Alex F wrote "I was just saying that Kasparov would have been better spending the money promoting chess. At no point did I say that I thought that it would be likely he did. " I agree he would have been better spending the mony promoting chess.

Alex F wrote (Is this the first forum arguement tht has everyone in agreement!!) - steady on there - we can't be having that

Alex F wrote Returning to the topic. Is there actually anyone on this forum who thinks that the ECF were right to start the legal action? I don't think they were right in fact I think they lost before they started - one could say you have to make a stand but the ECF inst known for taking this approach so why now?

I don't know if this is of very relevance but I have been to the Europeans with Peter twice and on both occasions I noticed that the Turkish Federation were extremely organised and in no mood to take prisoners

[Ernie Lazenby]

Peter wrote: one could say you have to make a stand but the ECF inst known for taking this approach so why now?

Thats for Short and De-Mooi to answer, they sold it to the board ( not to Andrew)

[Krishna Shiatis]

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.

Krishna

Kasparov is putting a lot of time and money into his version of Chess for Schools, which I would imagine is part of a charm offensive with a view to getting the FIDE Presidency - although it is obviously a worthwhile thing to do

We asked him to do a simul when he was visiting Manchester for the Turing conference, and he offered us 40% off his usual price i.e. "only" $30,000 net of tax

If you think that the money on the Court case would have been spent on English chess, I fear you are mistaken

Hi Mick and Sean,

I know that you are both right - he would have gone elsewhere - but I do also believe that there is a part of him now that realizes what a complete and utter waste of money/time it was.

I also know that some of his friends do read this forum and some of our suggestions are not half bad. If he realizes even now that there are many ways to skin a cat and if he still has money to burn then here, in our grassroots chess would be a good place to start.

In truth, I personally think there is a good chance he will not pay up his side of the costs. I am very concerned about where that will leave the ECF.

I would like to know who has seen these guarantees and whether anyone has checked whether he has the money to pay the legal costs of FIDE when they come knocking at our door.

Exactly how much is our exposure at the moment? Everything seems to be shrouded in secrecy from the moment the court case was first brought to our attention to now when we have the result.

Also Mick, I do agree, that the extortionate amount he requested to play a simul was well out of order. He would have known that nobody would pay such a ridiculous sum. Out of goodwill to us he should have offered it to us for free and then allowed the organisers to set an amount which could be donated to grassroots chess. That would have gone down very well with everyone here and I am sure all over the world.

He has asked for our goodwill - but what have we got in return? A lot of grief from FIDE for the foreseeable future and financial uncertainty, as far as I can tell.

[Krishna Shiatis]

I was just saying that Kasparov would have been better spending the money promoting chess. At no point did I say that I thought that it would be likely he did.
(Is this the first forum arguement tht has everyone in agreement!!)

Returning to the topic. Is there actually anyone on this forum who thinks that the ECF were right to start the legal action?

Alex, I think that this is a really excellent question. It is always very easy with hindsight to say about what was right and what was not. However in this case, I think the writing was on the wall early on. We were not told too much and therefore could not really work out properly how we felt when it all began.

I think what happened was as follows:

a) There was/is a problem at the top of FIDE with the President.
b) He was/is annoying a lot of people.
c) Kasparov wanted to take legal action but could not do it himself as he needed a Federation to do it for him.
d) We offered our services when asked, based on the fact that we agreed with (a) above and felt that there was no financial risk and some of our board members are friends with Garry.

My personal opinion (based admittedly on probably not knowing the half of it because we have simply not been told the full story) is that whilst it is probably true about (a), everything he did was within the rules of FIDE. So we could never have won the case and therefore it was not a good way to approach the problem.

I believe that we should have asked for the money from Garry to be put into a bank account somewhere to ensure that promises were kept.

I still do not know if this has been done, we have not been told so we can only speculate, but from the silence of the ECF and the lack of confirmation that we are covered financially, we can only think the worst.

[Mick Norris]

Kasparov has the money, so if we have a legal guarantee, I don't see a problem

Kasparov can charge what he likes for simuls, if we could have found sponsorship, then we would have said yes, but we didn't have time (or the phone number of anyone at Barclays )

Kirsan is difficult to unseat, but he needs to go, so the legal action was justified, albeit not the ideal battleground, and was only lost on a technicality - all the stuff people on here moan about CJ, rightly or wrongly, is nothing compared to how Kirsan behaves, he brings the name of chess Presidents into disrepute (which annoys me )

As for our Turkish friend, his actions are inexcusable, and I would have thought an arbiter boycott was the least response we could expect after what has happened to Lara, Sean et all

[Paul Cooksey]

Returning to the topic. Is there actually anyone on this forum who thinks that the ECF were right to start the legal action?

I doubt it. I doubt even Kasparov would have started the action knowing he would lose, But you can only judge whether an action was well advised at the time the decision was taken. All hindsight tells us the chances of success was less than 100%. Where do you cut-off? 80%? 50%?

we can only think the worst.

This seems rather insulting to the members of the ECF board who have commented, and possibly a legal adviser known to Mr Giddins.

And speaking of Jack.
Thanks for sticking your head above the parapet. Your honesty does you credit, and for the record I wouldn't expect you to resign.

Nor would I. Rather the opposite.

There's a couple of resignations i would like to see though.

Which Justin clarifies on his blog.

I don't follow his reasoning though. If his issue is not with the substantive case (the thing for which Nigel Short and CJ were responsible) but rather the ECF's failure to have open and transparent processes (the things for which non-exec directors are appointed), and he does feel resignations are appropriate, then surely he is calling for the non-execs to resign?

For what it is worth, I don't think this is a resigning matter for the non-execs. Jack and Mike retain my confidence. I would say this was an issue that all the non-execs should learn from. The ECF seems to need more help adopting good governance than most organisations, so the non-execs need to be active.

In a similar vein, my view on CJ is also known to the forum. The report of the chairman of the finance committee on Sheffield 2011 made his continuation in an executive position untenable. I don't think he could have said anything to persuade me otherwise, but the absence of any explanation seems to me in itself another serious error of judgement. It is unhelpful, for me at least, to discuss any other alleged failings on his part, since they tend only to make me sympathetic to someone who I think has to stand down anyway.

So that just leaves Nigel Short, and his policy of open opposition to the FIDE leadership. The most positive spin on the lost court case I can think of is that it is another shot across the bows of FIDE (and even I don't really buy that, it seems more like confirmation CAS will tut at FIDE ignoring its rules, but won't do anything about it.). But I still think it is a correct policy, and it seems harsh to hold him accountable for the deplorable actions of the TCF. (Ask Suat Atalik how fair the TCF is.). I could imagine still supporting him as FIDE delegate.

[Andrew Zigmond]

I don't think anybody is quite daft enough to enter into a court case they knew they were going to lose. Therefore when certain members of the board pushed for this action they must have thought there was a reasonable chance of success.

I've said before that Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is a disgrace to the worldwide chess community; a figurehead who claims to have been kidnapped by aliens, who courted Colonel Gaddafi and whose political career was marked by human rights abuses and allegations of murdering political opponents (the last of these being something the then BCF and at least one current member of the board didn't give two hoots about at the time it must be added) makes our game a global laughing stock. I think the ECF is right, in principal to oppose him, and that sacrifices must be made as a consequence.

The problem is that since the fallout from the incident at Sheffield (rather than the incident itself) the ECF board and the President in particular have struggled to command the respect from the grassroots they need to follow this difficult process through. What is equally worrying is that some of them either don't realise this or, worse, don't care.

[Krishna Shiatis]

we can only think the worst.

This seems rather insulting to the members of the ECF board who have commented, and possibly a legal adviser known to Mr Giddins.

I do not think it is insulting at all. This court action was brought about in our name. We are merely seeking reassurances on the back of the loss that the money is still forthcoming and that we will survive as an organisation. We have not officially even been told that we lost the case.

I do not think that it is too much to ask for reassurance.

Paul, nobody is arguing with you, Nigel or Garry that this guy has done some bad things and is bad for chess. The question is whether legal action was the appropriate course of action.

I (and perhaps some other people also) do believe that there are perhaps much more effective ways of dealing with this which should have been considered and tried before the legal action and that we should have been consulted before legal action was taken in our name.

I repeat, I agree that this guy at the top of FIDE is a mad bloke; but at the same time, my loyalties lie with my chess Federation, players, arbiters etc; I am very concerned they may have to face the repercussions of an action which most people do not seem to have agreed to in the first place.

If we have no liability and Mr Kasparov has already foot the bill and is willing/has already put the money aside for the possible FIDE costs, then why not tell us in an open and honest statement? We all know that our arbiters are being punished, what we do not know is what will happen next?

[Krishna Shiatis]

Kasparov has the money, so if we have a legal guarantee, I don't see a problem

I'm afraid it is not as simple as that. In theory, he could declare himself/his organisation bankrupt and avoid paying anything. I am not saying that he would, just that he could. This would leave us to foot the bill.

Usually in cases like this - and I think this has been mentioned by someone else already - the money is put in a bank account somewhere, called an Escrow, where it sits until everything is resolved.

Again, I do not know what is happening as we have not been told. It may be that this has actually been done or that the ECF are trying to organise it now as we speak. We just do not know.

[Peter D Williams]

Krishna says-"I do not think it is insulting at all. This court action was brought about in our name. We are merely seeking reassurances on the back of the loss that the money is still forthcoming and that we will survive as an organisation. We have not officially even been told that we lost the case.

I do not think that it is too much to ask for reassurance".

I agree we should get a reassurance that ECF members are not going to foot the bill.
Krishna thoughts on this subject make perfect sense to me!

[Paul Cooksey]

Krishna says-"I do not think that it is too much to ask for reassurance".
I agree we should get a reassurance that ECF members are not going to foot the bill.
Krishna thoughts on this subject make perfect sense to me!

I am sorry, not to me. Andrew Farthing, the CEO of the ECF has answered this question already.

Asking Andrew to answer it again seems to me a criticism of either his judgement or his honesty. (Or the consequence of not reading this thread and the preceding ones). If people want to challenge him, or ask follow up questions, that is fine by me. But I'm irritated by the suggestion we are not being told anything.