FIDE bullies online chess entrepreneurs.
FIDE goes too far
Having lost several high profile legal battles to prevent online chess entrepreneurs like Chess24 from broadcasting premiere chess tournaments, FIDE has now stooped to coercion and bullying to get its way.
At the recently concluded 88th FIDE Congress in Greece, it was decided that any chess player who was even indirectly implicated in the transmission and broadcast of FIDE tournaments could face up to a 10-year suspension.
FIDE decided to use its infamous ‘Ethics Commission’ as the stick with which to beat online chess entrepreneurs into submission. While the Ethics Commission is supposed to be independent, this latest move by FIDE has laid bare for all to see what we have long suspected: the Ethics Commission is but a political pawn.
Ofcourse, up until this latest FIDE Congress there was nothing unethical about the transmission and broadcast of chess moves. And the courts had ruled that FIDE does not have any exclusive ownership rights with respect to the transmission and broadcast of chess moves from any FIDE sanctioned tournament.
Ignoring the courts’ decisions, FIDE has crossed the line of responsible and appropriate behavior and is today targetting chess players for merely being associated with online chess sites. Chess24 has since refused to even mention the name of FIDE’s tournaments. Several other online sites have also joined the boycott.
“Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate others. One essential prerequisite is the perception, by the bully or by others, of an imbalance of social or physical power, which distinguishes bullying from conflict. Behaviors used to assert such domination can include verbal harassment or threat, physical assault or coercion, and such acts may be directed repeatedly towards particular targets.”