Olympiad

[Roger de Coverly]

No, if Norway is your primary destination you need a specifically Norwegian visa.

I would have thought it obvious how to try to circumvent this, subject to another embassy being willing to co-operate. If you fly to Amsterdam and have a Netherlands Schengen visa, that's enough isn't it? You wouldn't be able to get to the UK or Ireland, but you can get to Norway without passing through any other passport controlled Borders. That makes the question as to whether third party Schengen countries issue what are essentially transit visas. I could well believe that if the response to the question "why are you travelling to the Netherlands?" was "I am on the way to Norway to play chess" , that the answer might be "no".

[Andy Howie]

T-shirtgate the sequel!

http://instagram.com/p/qluOnFTchX/?modal=true

[Roger de Coverly]

Lawyers at dawn!

http://susanpolgar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/ ... latov.html

Our interests in the litigation are represented by the American Quinn Emanuel, a leading international company specialising in court and arbitration procedures.

Chess players of any national team must feel secure, and chess officials must act in strict accordance with the law and refrain from arbitrary actions.

FIDE eligibility requirements are unclear, but can you really delay registering your team, just because you are Russia and attempting to sign one of the world's best players from one of your nearer rivals?

[Andy Howie]

Breaking transfer rules in the process...

[Roger de Coverly]

More lawyers

http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS ... ly2014.pdf

[Andy Howie]

Sands and Long to resign??? Has he completely lost the plot??

[Christopher Kreuzer]

For lawyers that claim to practice in English, the English text and/or translation is a bit rubbish.

http://www.jmrlegal.ch/

Founded 2008. Are these the same lawyers as FIDE used last time?

Thinking of others countries where the Olympiad could have been held, would the same problems have arisen? How much of it is due to cultural differences between FIDE and any potential host country, and how much is specifically due to this organising committee? (If the Olympiad had been held in England under the auspices of the ECF, for example, how would the ECF have handled this? Ditto for other countries.)

[Roger de Coverly]

If the Olympiad had been held in England under the auspices of the ECF, for example, how would the ECF have handled this? Ditto for other countries.

I imagine it would have bent the rules to allow the entry of as many countries as possible. As regards the Lahno issue, a straight ultimatum to the Russian Federation to name a team and to FIDE to set an eligibility deadline. I think the Norwegians can be faulted on the handling of the potential election by having two Kasparov supporters in senior positions, but then so can FIDE by trying to pull the plug on delegates and Federations announcing support of Kasparov. Perhaps someone should have reminded both parties that it's supposed to be a secret ballot and that with the ever present possibility of dirty tricks being applied to small Federations by both sides, that silence on voting intentions would be a wise precaution until they were safely in Tromso.

Whilst in principle the ECF could run an Olympiad with sufficient commercial support, in practice Government backing is needed, as in the Olympics, to avoid embarrassing visa issues. Similarly almost everywhere.

[MartinCarpenter]

Hard to say. You do have to wonder how anyone is possibly meant to organise an event on this sort of scale when the president is claiming (and freely using!) the right to basically overrule anything he wants at any stage.

Presumably they don't do this remotely as often in a normal year but the politics are getting dragged into sundry things this time. (all over that last letter ).

In terms of reaction I dunno. America say would I think be very likely to do whatever was required to get the Russians in 'for the good of the event'. Nordic countries much less so.

[Andy Howie]

"In case the OC would unfortunately not (i) reverse its decision of 16 July 2014, (ii) allow legitimate
delegates to attend the FIDE Congress, (iii) exclude biased members and (iv) fully comply with the letter
and the spirit of FIDE regulations, FIDE will (i) request urgent measures before the CAS and (ii) sue
individually the members of the OC and/or signatories of the decision of 16 July 2014 for the financial
damages caused by their infringements of FIDE regulations, in particular (but not only) if the Chess
Olympiad in Tromsø must be cancelled and be held in another country. "

So we are going to Sochi then...

[Roger de Coverly]

You do have to wonder how anyone is possibly meant to organise an event on this sort of scale when the president is claiming (and freely using!) the right to basically overrule anything he wants at any stage.

He doesn't use that right when it's being run by his supporters. Witness the exclusion of arbiters in 2012 from Federations disliked by the organiser.

[Matthew Turner]

I would just like to make a point which might get lost in all the politicking. I've been to Tromso a number of times and the Tromso organisers are both tremendous organisers and bloody nice people. They love their chess and do everything they can to make things enjoyable and interesting for the players (groups of 2700's trying their hand at fishing at 1am for example). If we don't get an amazing Olympiad, then there might be lots of people to blame, but for those just trying to organise an extra special chess event it will be terribly sad.

[Mick Norris]

In terms of reaction I dunno. America say would I think be very likely to do whatever was required to get the Russians in 'for the good of the event'. Nordic countries much less so.

I think the Americans might well think their President would prefer not to have Russians in the USA at the moment

Given what happened with the airliner yesterday, the Norwegians might be thinking the same - if it moves to Sochi, would all the countries think it safe to send their players at the moment?

Be interesting to see if Carlsen - Anand goes ahead in Sochi later in the year too

[Roger de Coverly]

The war of letters continues.

In this one, the Ukraine Federation would like to discuss in the General Assembly the status of players and organisations in the Crimea and challenges the legitimacy of the transfer of Lagno.

https://mikhailgolubev.files.wordpress. ... ly2014.pdf

[Chris Rice]

Emil Sutovsky the ACP President is trying to act as a peacemaker (possible future FIDE President?)

Dear chess friends,

The Olympiad in Tromso is about to start in less than two weeks but, unfortunately, the event which is supposed to be both a great chess festival and the most prestigious team competition is marred by controversial decisions and mutual accusations between FIDE and Norwegian organizers. We all know that it was not easy to raise the funds for such an event, and we all know about objective difficulties that Norwegian organizers had to overcome in order to secure the event, which was in doubt till very recently. The whole chess community supported the organizers' efforts, and although the final confirmation of the event came fairly late, and actually there are still quite a bit of an organizing problems to be resolved - the chess world has shown patience and understanding. Now we'd expect some sort of reciprocity from the Organizing Committee.
Here I'd like to unequivocally stress my position : banning any team from the participation in the Olympiad, based on the late registration goes against the spirit of Olympiad as a great festival. Banning reigning Olympic Champion is against the spirit of this great competition, and let's have the things clear, just unheard of.

Being no lawyer, I can't judge about the letter of the law, but its spirit would be clearly violated, if the teams are banned from the participation. It is about common sense - if not for the common sense, Bobby Fischer would not have even started his title match in 1972, let alone become the World Champion, and that's only the most exceptional example.

I sincerely hope that a common sense and Olympic principles will prevail and all the suspended teams will be welcomed in Tromso.

Emil Sutovsky

ACP President