St.Petersburg Blitz & Rapid; UNPLUGGED
Dvorkovich: ‘out-sourcing’ discrimination?
Did FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich conspire not only to subvert FIDE’s anti-discrimination statutes (1.2) but also the IOC Charter’s sacred ‘Principle 6’?
In 2015 Saudi Arabia was about to try to do something strikingly similar to what transpired in St.Petersburg last week with a joint-bid (with Bahrain) for the Olympics, but IOC president Thomas Bach swiftly buried the Saudi effort, saying ”You can not simply ‘out-source’ certain issues (of discrimination-ed.) to another territory” (Washington Times)
This incident is important because it creates a precedent. Fast forward to 2018, every aspect of the organization and running of the St.Petersburg championships is subject to strict adherence to IOC regulations. The FIDE regulations for the World R&B Championships say so. LINK.
In particular, rule 7.7 also covers the sponsors:
How FIDE managed to get around these rules
By the beginning of November 2018 it was clear that Saudi Arabia was stalling and not going to issue visas to any Israeli player, identical to what happened in the 2017 edition of the tournament in Riyadh. In a press conference on November 1 ( in Moscow ) Dvorkovich had this to say (LINK):
“The country’s authorities have not provided guarantees of admittance and safe participation of representatives from all countries. If the guarantees are not received in the coming days, the Championship will be transferred to another country.”
At the same time pressure was building up against FIDE when ‘The Lawfare Project’ joined several Israeli players who were planning legal action in view of FIDE’s non-compliance of its own anti-discrimination regulations. LINK
Finally, on November 30 , FIDE officially announced that the 2018 edition of the World R&B Championships would take place in Russia:
Short on details, but ABSOLUTELY no mention of Saudi Arabia’s continued involvement with the event. Even when the official regulations were published (link given above) Saudi Arabia is not mentioned once in the entire document. The event is simply called the ‘FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships’.
Everybody just assumed that FIDE had done the right thing and stripped Saudi Arabia of the 2018 championship. Fully compliant with FIDE’s (and the IOC) own regulations.
Dozens of MSM news articles were published believing just this. Even Emil Sutovsky would lead us on to believe this the case when on December 3 The Times of Israel published excerpts of an email from him:
And this is where everybody thought the situation would stay, but inside of a week all of this changes, leaving everybody with open mouth!
Saudi Arabia suddenly becomes, effectively, the principal sponsor of the St.Petersburg event, which now has the official name ‘The 2018 King Salman FIDE World R&B Championships’.
Of course, FIDE does not call Saudi Arabia a ‘sponsor’, but instead a ‘partner‘. And what are they doing in St.Petersburg? Promoting chess to the world! And, oh, by the way, Saudi Arabia was never stripped of the right to hold the event: they ‘accepted’ FIDE’s ‘request’ to move it to St.Petersburg (!!!).
IN CONCLUSION
This little piece of theatre, all very opaque and lacking any transparency, is just about out-sourcing discrimination. Very much against FIDE’s own rules. And most certainly a slap in the face to the IOC’s Charter.
Addendum
