Games begin early at Istanbul Olympiad
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
BEWARE: CHILDREN PLAYING!
”Children’s games are hardly games. Children are never more serious than when they play.”
MONTAIGNE, Essays
It all started with a frivolous lawsuit launched by Karpov’s lawyers against FIDE in 2010. Something absurd about Kirsan Ilyumzhinov not having the correct credentials for running for re-election of an organization that he had been head of for the previous 15 years! The CAS laughed it out of the court room. Kirsan’s legal team scored an impressive victory. HOWEVER, as FIDE is a big organization, it still must pay its own legal fees. Despite winning, the fees amounted to approximately one million dollars. You can read more about this elsewhere in this blog…
ENTER Kasparov–who had been jilted by the chess world in the 2010 presidential election-– and the next thing we find is the childishly wonderful prank of submerging FIDE in an endless series of frivolous lawsuits just to bankrupt the organization…apparently he has convinced 7 chess federations (England, France, Germany, Switzerland, USA, Georgia and the Ukraine) to take FIDE to court for some technical reason having to with how VP’s are appointed/elected. (link)
It will likely cost FIDE millions of dollars in legal fees, even if FIDE wins, which is most likely. Most of the members of said federations instigating the actions are not even aware of the legal action taken on their behalf. For example, the ECF forgot to inform the membership–or deemed it so unimportant— of the fact that they had undertaken legal action that could potentially cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of its own money. (link)
Well, now it seems that those federations supporting the Kasparov initiative are being punished, if only a slap on the wrist. With the 2012 Olympiad to begin in Turkey later this summer, the organizers have decided to NOT invite arbiters from the 7 countries involved to help out in Istanbul.link
TIT FOR TAT! The Turkish organizers have made it known that there is not anything personal about their decision—that chess players from said countries will be welcomed with open arms at the Olympiad (as they always are)—but that ONLY the arbiters are not welcome.
Well, when it comes down to it, does anyone REALLY care? Should you or I care? I know that I don’t care! As long as children can play safely and have fun at the same time…let them. Childhood is a very formative period and playing is an essential part of that process: we can only hope that one day SOON they will all grow up and become responsible members of our little chess community…
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS