Emergency Board Meeting - Draft Minutes

[NickFaulks]

There does seem to be a distinct amount of Kasparov hatred around. Is this for his numerous supposed crimes against chess or perhaps just FIDE, or some shady pro-Putin lobby looking to discredit him?

I wonder whether Kirsan is the only leading chess figure off with the flying saucers ( I think 10,000 posts puts Roger among the panoply of gods ).

The true reason why Kasparov is widely disliked is that, for all his astonishing achievements at the chessboard, he is personally a jerk. Over the years, he has managed to hack off almost everyone with whom he has come into contact. Sorry, I know he's your hero, but facts must be faced.

[Nigel Short]

The true reason why Kasparov is widely disliked is that, for all his astonishing achievements at the chessboard, he is personally a jerk. Over the years, he has managed to hack off almost everyone with whom he has come into contact. Sorry, I know he's your hero, but facts must be faced.

[/quote]

He probably loves you too, Nick.
Now, seeing as you have been very quiet for a few weeks, can you give us your "independent" opinion as to whether AP should resign - particularly given that he promised the Board in writing, on January 20th, that he would resign if he lost the confidence of the Board for even "15 minutes"?

[JustinHorton]

Something to be said for a few weeks of quiet.

You're up with the gossip, Nigel - you know anything about this six months' porridge Danailov is supposed to have done? I assume Paulson is making this up?

[Nigel Short]

News to me, JH.

[PeterFarr]

The claim about Danailov being convicted of stealing from the Bulgarian army has previously been made in a tweet a few months ago by Ali Yazici, former opponent of Danailov for the ECU presidency, and yet another person who one would run an awful long way from to avoid awarding a vote to.

Whether the claim is true I have no idea, although apparently in 2011 Danailov was awarded 'the highest Bulgarian state award... for his exceptional contribution to the Republic of Bulgaria in the field of physical education and sport', so presumably any sins have been forgiven ( I got this from the website "danailov-for-president.com" which I take to be a source of objective truth. )

[PeterFarr]

The focus of the thread seems to be almost entirely on the FIDE and ECU issues, whereas according to the minutes, the concerns of at least 3 Board members seem to be more about the approach to ECF domestic issues and the way that AP is perceived as acting off his own bat without involving the relevant Directors. Whether this justified the confidence vote is not really possible to tell from the minutes; Julian Clissold evidently thought it at least a premature action, while Phil Ehr said he thought AP was doing a good job.

On the face of it, if the Board can't work effectively with AP on the ECF's own agenda, that is of more importance to the membership as a whole than the ECU / FIDE stuff, which is pretty remote to most of the core business of the ECF.

In the end though, I wonder if the final straws for ECF Council might not be any of the original 'offences' of apparently under-mining other Directors, the Agon / FIDE leaked memo or allying with Azmaiparashvili, but instead AP's counter-attack on Nigel Short and the 'defence' of Azmaiparashvili, neither of which looked like very presidential behaviour, even if AP felt provoked.

For the future, it does seem that the roles and responsibilities of the President and CEO need spelling out more clearly. If you have a CEO, then that seems to imply that the President should be more of a figure-head / non-exec. doesn't it?

[JustinHorton]

Whether the claim is true I have no idea, although apparently in 2011 Danailov was awarded 'the highest Bulgarian state award... for his exceptional contribution to the Republic of Bulgaria in the field of physical education and sport', so presumably any sins have been forgiven ( I got this from the website "danailov-for-president.com" which I take to be a source of objective truth. )

I wonder if he incorporates the award in his email address?

[JustinHorton]

For the future, it does seem that the roles and responsibilities of the President and CEO need spelling out more clearly. If you have a CEO, then that seems to imply that the President should be more of a figure-head / non-exec. doesn't it?

Indeed. but as soon as Paulson got elected, it was like the President took on the role of the CEO and the CEO took on the role of the President. This didn't attract much comment at the time.

[PeterFarr]

For the future, it does seem that the roles and responsibilities of the President and CEO need spelling out more clearly. If you have a CEO, then that seems to imply that the President should be more of a figure-head / non-exec. doesn't it?

Indeed. but as soon as Paulson got elected, it was like the President took on the role of the CEO and the CEO took on the role of the President. This didn't attract much comment at the time.

Well that's true. On the surface, if AP has been under-mining the individual Directors, then logically he has been under-mining the CEO too. But Phil Ehr was happy with AP, which seems to mean either he doesn't agree with the other Directors, or he sees the role of CEO as something different.

I have some sympathy, it looks as though he has been trying to make the best of a bad job.

[Nigel Short]

"On the surface, if AP has been under-mining the individual Directors, then logically he has been under-mining the CEO too. But Phil Ehr was happy with AP, which seems to mean either he doesn't agree with the other Directors, or he sees the role of CEO as something different. "

Lest we forget, Phil Ehr asked Andrew Paulson to resign. And for a very clear reason, I might add.

[JustinHorton]

He alos wrote:

" I am disappointed, however, by the vituperative language he used in the press and in social media, persistently asserting that the AGON memo is proof of a criminal conflict of interest. The lack of circumspection is unbecoming the role of our FIDE Delegate and a Grandmaster."

[PeterFarr]

"On the surface, if AP has been under-mining the individual Directors, then logically he has been under-mining the CEO too. But Phil Ehr was happy with AP, which seems to mean either he doesn't agree with the other Directors, or he sees the role of CEO as something different. "

Lest we forget, Phil Ehr asked Andrew Paulson to resign. And for a very clear reason, I might add.

He did:- "For the good of English chess, particularly the untenable Board climate, I asked AP today to resign."

[JustinHorton]

( I got this from the website "danailov-for-president.com" which I take to be a source of objective truth. )

The Gandhi quote at the top made me laugh out loud.

[Simon Spivack]

Sean Hewitt gave a link to an article in the grotesquely misnamed Nezavisimaya (i.e. The Independent. It has nothing to do with the UK newspaper of that name). The Russian Independent is controlled by the Kremlin.

Towards the bottom of that January interview, as highlighted by Sean, there is:

Ваши оппоненты утверждают, что за вас голосуют в основном Азия и Африка, то есть страны, далекие от шахмат...

i.e. "Your opponents allege that your votes are drawn mainly from Asia and Africa, that is countries on the chess periphery ..."

Это не совсем так. Сейчас нас поддерживают федерации Франции, Англии, Швейцарии, Испании... Они же видят мою работу. Я денег от шахмат не получаю, только трачу свои. И свое время... Посещаю более 100 стран в год. А для бизнеса одни неудобства – куда ни приеду, а там уже Каспаров совсеми перессорился...

In English:

That is not quite correct. We are supported by the federations of France, England, Switzerland, Spain ... they can see my work. I do not make money from chess, I spend my own. And during my term I have visited more than a 100 countries a year. And I encounter nothing but awkward situations in this business - for no matter where I go, Kasparov has already quarrelled with everyone ...

Andrew Paulson has been kind enough to volunteer:"I'm always happy to answer questions." Let's hope so.

Everyone interested knows that Andrew Paulson or his companies have effectively received money from Ilyumzhinov or parties related to him; for instance, there is the unpaid $500,000 due to FIDE for Agon's rights. Is that not a gift of sorts? Incidentally, for what it's worth, it's not entirely clear to me that the money is now owed. However, one thing's for sure, FIDE is light of that half million.

One can certainly envisage that that would cause conversations to occur between Andrew and Ilyumzhinov. Which brings me, illogically, to the Bible. Some will recall Portiphar's wife's words to Joseph: "Lie with me". Fewer that Thomas Mann commented: "She must have said more than that!" Thus that half million, plus Lord knows what else (for instance, there's the mysterious hiring, sacking and rehiring of Malcolm Pein at the London Grand Prix event), could have resulted in Kirsan believing he had Andrew in his debt. That is certainly one explanation as to how Kirsan claimed, with less justification than William the Bastard, to have conquered England!

So, Andrew, can you provide an alternative account?

Incidentally, Andrew, I can't find a retraction of Ilyumzhinov's words in the Russian sites on the Internet. As that's probably incompetence on my part, can you do better? A curiosity is that, although the FIDE presidential election is of interest in Russia, I can't see any articles about your local difficulties on the excellent ChessPro website, whereas they are reported on chess-news.ru, run by the opposition minded Yevgenii Surov. Am I missing something?

[Andrew Paulson]

Everyone interested knows that Andrew Paulson or his companies have effectively received money from Ilyumzhinov or parties related to him; for instance, there is the unpaid $500,000 due to FIDE for Agon's rights. Is that not a gift of sorts? Incidentally, for what it's worth, it's not entirely clear to me that the money is now owed. However, one thing's for sure, FIDE is light of that half million.

One can certainly envisage that that would cause conversations to occur between Andrew and Ilyumzhinov. Which brings me, illogically, to the Bible. Some will recall Portiphar's wife's words to Joseph: "Lie with me". Fewer that Thomas Mann commented: "She must have said more than that!" Thus that half million, plus Lord knows what else (for instance, there's the mysterious hiring, sacking and rehiring of Malcolm Pein at the London Grand Prix event), could have resulted in Kirsan believing he had Andrew in his debt. That is certainly one explanation as to how Kirsan claimed, with less justification than William the Bastard, to have conquered England!

So, Andrew, can you provide an alternative account?

Incidentally, Andrew, I can't find a retraction of Ilyumzhinov's words in the Russian sites on the Internet. As that's probably incompetence on my part, can you do better? A curiosity is that, although the FIDE presidential election is of interest in Russia, I can't see any articles about your local difficulties on the excellent ChessPro website, whereas they are reported on chess-news.ru, run by the opposition minded Yevgenii Surov. Am I missing something?

Simon,

Happy to answer your questions. But, try to be more concrete and less allusive if you expect answers to be concrete and substantive.

1. "Everyone interested knows that Andrew Paulson or his companies have effectively received money from Ilyumzhinov." Who is everyone, how do they know, how do you know that they know, and does that make it true?

2. "... for instance, there is the unpaid $500,000 due to FIDE for Agon's rights." This has been dealt with innumerable times both by me in this forum and by the Presidential Board and the General Assembly of FIDE. It was waived by FIDE because I was unexpectedly obliged to pay $1m for the Chelyabinsk Grand Prix.

3. "... the mysterious hiring, sacking and rehiring of Malcolm Pein at the London Grand Prix event." You might recall that it was the Candidates and not the Grand Prix where Malcolm and Nigel and Lawrence Trent provided excellent commentary. Aside from organisational incompetence and budgetary fluctuations, what could this "mystery" possibly have implied? I don't see how it logically follows that "... Kirsan believ[ed] he had Andrew in his debt." Do you really think that the President of FIDE is going to get involved in negotiating contracts for commentators or that he has a particularly strong opinion of Malcolm Pein?

4. You'd like "an alternative account" of what, exactly? Perhaps an alternative account of what "Everyone interested [already] knows?" If you read my posts here on the Forum, the back-up documentation, and look at who I am and what I've done in the past, you will be able to piece together your "alternative account" by yourself. You, better than most on the Forum, can imagine what I had to fight for and against in Russia from 1993-2008. You know that I created one of the largest online media companies in Russia, perhaps the only one where journalists are not influenced/censored by the Russian government or its owners or even its advertisers. You know that my media company was and is a platform for Alexei Navalny, one of the leaders of the Russian opposition; and that many of the other leaders (not Kasparov) of the opposition got their first jobs working for me. Surely, this should speak volumes for my ability to resist the influences of someone like Kirsan.

5. As far as I know, Ilyumzhinov has not (yet?) responded to my letter regarding his boast in Nezavissimaya Gazeta. But, if you make a close study of his 'complete works' you might note that he has before made claims that were somewhat exaggerated or deluded.

6. Yevgenii Surov is not 'opposition minded,' he is just a good journalist.

Andrew