Papers for ECF Council meeting 12th April 2014

[Roger de Coverly]

Initiative 3: Correct shortfalls in secondary schools, women’s and seniors’ chess

Unlike older teenagers and women, there's no shortage of seniors playing chess. If you take the new definition of "over 50", it may even represent a majority of active players. For players without dates of birth recorded, you can use the grading code as an indicative proxy giving that it's been allocated sequentially since 1986 and that those who were juniors when the code was first allocated are most likely to have had a date of birth recorded.

There aren't that many dedicated senior events though. Personally I think they should test stamina as well, so the English Seniors later this month should have had the same nine round format as the Easter weekender it parallels.

[Sean Hewitt]

I'll make sure the rest of the board take a look.

At the risk of stating the obvious, why wouldn't a functioning board have a pre-publication comment phase on something like a strategy document, particularly as it appears to advocate a total restructure of Board functions and responsibilities?

That would involve the CEO at least telling the board of his intentions; preferably consulting on them. In the case of the ECF CEO, he did neither.

[Rob Thompson]

Speculating, because they supported the compromise on the assumption that Council would not fall into line with the Board's recommendation. In other words it is not Council's approval of the motion which would support their 'individual judgements', but rather its rejection!

I feel it important to bring this back, largely because it is pretty much exactly my understanding of the current situation. The board as a whole wanted to get rid of Paulson, which they managed to do by offering a vote. So what are the outcomes of this vote? If the vote fails, as seems most likely, then Nigel will presumably feel more content regarding his degree of support, and carries the vote as normal. This is clearly not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Meanwhile, the board get to maintain some working relations with Paulson should he gain another position of power - his exit was an agreed upon deal and the board can, justifiably, claim that they recommended the motion and complied with the agreement by which he left the ECF.

Unfortunately, there has been some overreach regarding the documents to be presented to council, and appears to be bringing the entire edifice tumbling down. However, I maintain that this was not a bad plan, and with a little more discipline from Phil Ehr it could have been executed seamlessly.

It's been derided as game-playing, but for what it's worth you could do a lot worse than many board games for having an understanding of how to compromise and make deals of this nature. Politics, whether high or low, governmental or on a much smaller scale such as this, fundamentally is a game, so to write it off as game-playing is to fail to comprehend how decisions like this are made.

[J T Melsom]

Post deleted - on reflection it didn't add much to the debate other than to record my sense of exasperation.
The best chess in this country is generally organised outside the ECF umbrella. Perhaps rather than the extended posturing on the international stage etc , the Board might like to reflect on why this is, and whether the balance is appropriate.

[IM Jack Rudd]

It's been derided as game-playing, but for what it's worth you could do a lot worse than many board games for having an understanding of how to compromise and make deals of this nature. Politics, whether high or low, governmental or on a much smaller scale such as this, fundamentally is a game, so to write it off as game-playing is to fail to comprehend how decisions like this are made.

The whole thing seems to resemble a game in many ways. The game in question may or may not be Battlestar Galactica.

[Joey Stewart]

That does beg the question, therefore, who is the cylon in this game?

[NickFaulks]

Unlike older teenagers and women, there's no shortage of seniors playing chess.

Judging by the London League match I played in last night, sectors in need of urgent attention are women and the under 60s.

[Dragoljub Sudar]

Down at the end it says

Improve membership processes and phase out game fees

So what does this mean? Is it that non-members can play in graded competitions, or is it that they should be banned.

It means that the ECF board (or is it just the CEO?) continues to attack players who have no need to become an ECF member as they play only a handful of graded games each season.

I hope that council rejects the proposal to increase the game fee to £2.25

[Nigel Short]

Incidentally, the latest issue of New in Chess (issue 2, 2014) sets out much of my own case against Andrew Paulson. Anyone who reads it will understand it is a matter of serious issues and not personality.

[Angus French]

Incidentally, the latest issue of New in Chess (issue 2, 2014) sets out much of my own case against Andrew Paulson. Anyone who reads it will understand it is a matter of serious issues and not personality.

The gist of Nigel's New in Chess article is that Andrew Paulson and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (and Kirsan’s cronies) are out to fleece FIDE. But how can this be when the FIDE-Agon contract has terms which appear beneficial to FIDE, in particular:
- FIDE receives payment for each event organised by Agon (see 3.2.(b).(ii) of the contract) equal to 20% or 25% of the prize money fund; and
- FIDE receives payment from Agon each year from 2016 (see part 4), on a sliding scale, of between 30% and 55% of "Adjusted Gross Sponsorship Revenue" or 500,000 Euros, whichever is greater?

I see Nigel admits that he was the source for the recent Sunday Times article on the Paulson- Ilyumzhinov *proposal*. I wonder, how does discreditting the ECF’s President in a national newspaper benefit the ECF?

[Angus French]

In September 2012, in Instanbul, the FIDE General Assembly dutifully passed an agreement, selling the commercial rights of most of the main FIDE events, including the World Championship, to Agon – an offshore company founded in January 2012, in Jersey, and ostensibly owned by American fashion photographer Andrew Paulson.

Well, no:
- FIDE did not sell the commercial rights of most of the main FIDE events, including the World Championship. It only sold rights to World Championship events and then not the World Cup until 2015 (although Agon now appears to have lost the rights to World Cup events from 2015); and
- Andrew Paulson does not "ostensibly" own Agon, he owns all Agon shares in issue and no evidence of any other party’s beneficial interest in Agon has been demonstrated.

Andrew Paulson is better known as the co-founder and former co-owner of SUP Media rather than as a "fashion photographer".

Can we have some objectivity please?

[Nigel Short]

First of all, Angus, you should ask FIDE how much it has received from "selling" the commercial rights of major FIDE events to Agon in 2012. I think you will find that it is a nice round number.
Secondly,regarding the secret Paulson/Kirsan agreement: Phil Ehr took legal advice on this from two different lawyers and as a consequence, despite being AP's friend, he asked Andrew to resign. Incidentally, "yes" I think I have been doing the ECF a service...

[Andrew Paulson]

Andrew Paulson is better known as the co-founder and former co-owner of SUP Media rather than as a "fashion photographer".

Can we have some objectivity please?

Frankly, at the time, when I was much younger and living in Paris, I couldn't imagine anything better than being a fashion photographer ... taking pictures of the most beautiful men and women in the world dressed nicely or ... not. Only later in life did I come to understand the more subtle pleasures of being a chess administrator.

[Andrew Paulson]

Secondly,regarding the secret Paulson/Kirsan agreement: Phil Ehr took legal advice on this from two different lawyers and as a consequence, despite being AP's friend, he asked Andrew to resign. Incidentally, "yes" I think I have been doing the ECF a service...

You have been consistently sloppy and disingenuous in your media interventions on me and the matter of the FIDE Memorandum (for example, the twitter posts you have taken down at the Board’s insistence). I am not a policeman and therefore it is not my job to point them all out. However, in the case of this forum post, as it cites Phil Ehr, I feel I must firmly state that you are being knowingly and wilfully dishonest.

First, the Chief Executive asked for my resignation not because I had lost his confidence — quite the contrary, as he stated and as is recorded in the Minutes, he noted that I had been doing an excellent job as President — but because he felt that the rage whipped up on the ECF Board by you and Sean Hewitt could only be abated by my departure. It is for this reason that I resigned: to allow the Board get on with its work. To be clear, had Phil not been chairing of the Emergency Board Meeting he would have confirmed his confidence in me with his vote.

Second, your insinuation that there is a causal relation between Phil's taking legal advice and his asking me to resign, without revealing what legal advice he received, is an example of viciousness better suited to the tabloid press. Phil did discuss the case of the FIDE Memorandum in detail with a QC who responded that I had behaved neither illegally nor unethically.

Finally, Phil asked me to resign before receiving legal advice, not after. Therefore there was no relationship at all between the two.

[Nigel Short]

False - you were asked to resign by Phil Ehr after he took legal advice. My recollection, and indeed the recollection of numerous other people, is not at fault here.