The chess news today, but in quotations
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
FIDE often has a funny idea of how democracy works: the Executive decrees, and the Assembly approves. As opposed to the more widely accepted mechanism of proposal, discussions, modifications of said proposal, more discussions and finally a vote.
It seems that the upcoming FIDE Congress next month will see approvals of some very hefty fee increases that the individual member federations will have to pass on to the membership (that is, they will be obliged to or face an assortment of fines), including a new fee known as a ‘licence’.
The Executive has decreed that each player who has a FIDE rating will now have to pay a one-time 10 euro fee for a ‘licence’, followed by a 30 euro fee per year from then on. Should organizers not insist that participants of their tournaments have a licence then they will be fined 50 euros for each infraction (!) for each player.
Clearly, some organizers will go bankrupt just because of the fines! For FIDE, the upside is that tens of millions of euros will flow into it’s coffers, without having to increase service or even spend a dime.
NEVER THE LESS, some member nations of FIDE still have the right to protest and the Dutch Chess Federation has written a strongly worded letter to the Executive. I quote my favourite part:
”We feel that the interests of both chess players and chess organizers will be severely harmed if these proposals were to be accepted. And what is more we think that these proposals are a direct threat to the FIDE rating system – a system that is one of the great success stories of FIDE.”
It rests to see where this will go. No doubt more countries will follow suit. Should FIDE insist on these new fees then the simplest reaction is for organizers to STOP rating their events with FIDE. I am reminded of the 2000 proposals to introduce a fast new time control , effective January 1 2001, and the subsequent reactions by a growing number of national federations.
Quite simply, most organizers refused to use the new time controls and FIDE had to eventually back down, losing some face in doing so…
BUT, will it work this time? I can see all of the FIDE youth tournaments using these new fees, mostly because the parents pay anyway. And I can see some small federations (mostly in the 3rd world) agree to implement these fees and then barter their vote at the next FIDE election in return for not actually giving any money to FIDE.
And Canada? What will the CFC do? Well, quite simply : nothing at all. Already most players complain of the high cost of participating in tournaments. New fees will just break the camel’s back. There has been some discussion about eliminating the CFC-rating system (it has become corrupted by political meddling and incompetence), but now –should FIDE insist on the new proposals–FIDE rated events will disappear except for the national championships which serve to qualify for FIDE’s basket of goodies.
We will have to wait and see…
Some people brag to draw attention to themselves. Others criticize to show how good they are. Mark Glukhovsky is editor of ’64’ magazine and he is also manager of one of the favourite teams set to participate in the upcoming European Team Cup in Slovenia , starting on September 25th.
To make his point of how good his team is –compared to the competiton–he has called into question the formula used to determine the winning team. He has labelled it ‘absurd’.
”It is quite disappointing to bring 8 strong GMs to a tournament where the majority of the matches will be played against Soviet Candidate Masters-or those who are now called ”FIDE Masters”. That’s the absurdity of the tournament.” Link
Perhaps some one should ask Mr.Glukhovsky why he felt it is necessary to spend a small fortune to recruit some mercenary chess GMs just to beat so many weak players….
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
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O, shut up!
Some people brag to draw attention to themselves. Others criticize to show how good they are. Mark Glukhovsky is editor of ’64’ magazine and he is also manager of one of the favourite teams set to participate in the upcoming European Team Cup in Slovenia , starting on September 25th.
To make his point of how good his team is –compared to the competiton–he has called into question the formula used to determine the winning team. He has labelled it ‘absurd’.
”It is quite disappointing to bring 8 strong GMs to a tournament where the majority of the matches will be played against Soviet Candidate Masters-or those who are now called ”FIDE Masters”. That’s the absurdity of the tournament.” Link
Perhaps some one should ask Mr.Glukhovsky why he felt it is necessary to spend a small fortune to recruit some mercenary chess GMs just to beat so many weak players….
”Let them eat cake.”
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS