87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

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NickFaulks
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:57 am

shaunpress wrote: Is there a process for making this happen?
As I noted above, I think that ( driven by events ) the decision making process is already becoming more rational. Long overdue, of course.
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Nigel Short
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by Nigel Short » Sun Jul 31, 2016 1:09 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
JustinHorton wrote:Probably because nobody in the entire world believed either promise.
That does seem to have been the general view.
That's because you are so bitter and cynical you can't see something genuine when it stares you in the face...

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Jul 31, 2016 1:59 pm

Nigel Short wrote: That's because you are so bitter and cynical you can't see something genuine when it stares you in the face...
By "you" I assume you mean "nearly everyone". Indeed, politicians pulling huge numbers out of their hat on the eve of a big vote cannot expect to be taken seriously.
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by Nigel Short » Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:09 pm

And the delusional Kirsan Ilyumzhinov deserves to be taken seriously, does he? How pathetic. If you knew the first thing about Rex Sinquefield and the incredible support that the richest man in the State of Missouri gives to the game of chess, you would know that he honours his promises.

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by Mike Truran » Sun Jul 31, 2016 5:44 pm

Nigel

For the unenlightened among us, what was the background to the $10m Bermuda offer (and why it was turned down)?

No problem of course if it's confidential and can't be disclosed.

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by Angus French » Sun Jul 31, 2016 6:15 pm

I don't understand the Bermuda reference but competing pledges of $10m and $20m were made in the election speeches which directly preceded voting on the presidential election tickets.
Blog post (which references a piece by Nigel for New in Chess magazine): here.
Video of the FIDE General Assembly meeting: here (see just after 3 mins for Kasparov's pledge and just after 5 mins for Ilyumzhinov's counter pledge).

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by David Sedgwick » Sun Jul 31, 2016 6:42 pm

Mike Truran wrote:For the unenlightened among us, what was the background to the $10m Bermuda offer (and why it was turned down)?
Angus French wrote:I don't understand the Bermuda reference ...
Nick Faulks was the delegate for Bermuda at Tromso. He voted for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, thus in effect turning down Rex Sinquefield's $10m offer.

109 other delegates did likewise, of course.

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by NickFaulks » Sun Jul 31, 2016 7:54 pm

David Sedgwick wrote: Nick Faulks was the delegate for Bermuda at Tromso. He voted for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, thus in effect turning down Rex Sinquefield's $10m offer.
For the record I was not in fact our Delegate, but I was sitting next to him and available for advice.

Like a majority of federations, we had by then taken the decision to oppose Kasparov's candidacy. We did give not credence either to Kasparov's rabbit-out-of-a-hat $10m or to Kirsan's riposte that he would see his ten and raise him ten. I doubted at the time that there was a single person in the room who did, but it now appears that there was one.
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by David Sedgwick » Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:10 pm

David Sedgwick wrote:Nick Faulks was the delegate for Bermuda at Tromso. He voted for Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, thus in effect turning down Rex Sinquefield's $10m offer.
NickFaulks wrote:For the record I was not in fact our Delegate, but I was sitting next to him and available for advice.
Whoops! I knew that perfectly well.

My apologies to Nick and to Forum readers.

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by Nigel Short » Mon Aug 01, 2016 12:59 pm

Nick, there were, in fact, dozens of delegates fooled by Kirsan's phoney offer. I heard several of them discussing it, with admiration, in the bus going back to the hotel. Not Makropoulos, of course, who correctly described it as "bull**it" and the contemptible cynics like yourself who had already decided upon a despicable course of action in supporting an obviously unworthy President.
As to Rex's offer: say what you like, but it was real. You, of all people, cannot now complain about the parlous state of FIDE's finances. You have brought this upon the game. Shame on you.

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Aug 01, 2016 2:15 pm

Nigel Short wrote:Nick, there were, in fact, dozens of delegates fooled by Kirsan's phoney offer. I heard several of them discussing it, with admiration, in the bus going back to the hotel.
I'll have to take your word for that, because I heard nothing of that sort on my bus. What is undeniable is that neither Kasparov's last-minute claim nor Kirsan's response changed a single vote. According to the numbers, votes were cast precisely as federations had said they would be. Both camps knew these numbers perfectly well and only Rex himself, to judge by his undisguised astonishment and fury, had been kept in the dark.
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by JustinHorton » Mon Aug 01, 2016 2:27 pm

Me, I'm just a humble football fan, but I tend to believe, partly from my experience of that field, that financial probity is not best achieved by accepting, sight unseen, claims involving very large sums of money which are made verbally at the last minute when nobody is in a position to check or verify them in any way. It's how these things should not be done.
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by shaunpress » Mon Aug 01, 2016 10:52 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Nigel Short wrote:Nick, there were, in fact, dozens of delegates fooled by Kirsan's phoney offer. I heard several of them discussing it, with admiration, in the bus going back to the hotel.
I'll have to take your word for that, because I heard nothing of that sort on my bus. What is undeniable is that neither Kasparov's last-minute claim nor Kirsan's response changed a single vote. According to the numbers, votes were cast precisely as federations had said they would be. Both camps knew these numbers perfectly well and only Rex himself, to judge by his undisguised astonishment and fury, had been kept in the dark.
Well not every federation Nick ...

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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by NickFaulks » Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:50 pm

shaunpress wrote:
NickFaulks wrote:
Nigel Short wrote:Nick, there were, in fact, dozens of delegates fooled by Kirsan's phoney offer. I heard several of them discussing it, with admiration, in the bus going back to the hotel.
I'll have to take your word for that, because I heard nothing of that sort on my bus. What is undeniable is that neither Kasparov's last-minute claim nor Kirsan's response changed a single vote. According to the numbers, votes were cast precisely as federations had said they would be. Both camps knew these numbers perfectly well and only Rex himself, to judge by his undisguised astonishment and fury, had been kept in the dark.
Well not every federation Nick ...
If there were any last minute switches, then they balanced out.
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Re: 87th FIDE Congress; FIDE's financial situation

Post by Angus French » Mon Aug 08, 2016 10:19 am

Angus French wrote:I didn’t see a proposal to impeach FIDE President Ilyumzhinov, which Silvio Danailov has been signposting recently.
Well, according to Mr Danailov, a motion was submitted to impeach the President but, for some reason, it didn't make it onto the Agenda. See here. The motion was submitted by the Jamaica Chess Federation and Ian Wilkinson (who was part of Kasparov's 2014 election ticket).

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