Open letter to European chess federations
Ali Nihat Yazici on the mismanagement of ECU
Due to the very intensive political environment during the European Chess Union,
ECU, General Assembly in Khanty-Mansiysk in 2010, members of the general assembly
had decided that it was better to postpone the decision regarding the organization
of the events to a new extraordinary assembly. This new Extraordinary General
Assembly of the ECU will be held in Aix-les-Bains, on March 29th, 2011. However,
in addition to the topic of event organizations, the current ECU management
has prepared a long list of further proposals to be discussed at Aix-les-Bains.
The topic of the proposals include the shift of event decision power from general
assembly to the board, the budget, Sofia rules, dress code, Bilbao rules, and
copyright for moves. We, as the Turkish Chess Federation, find all of these
proposals unsound and lacking:
-
The shift of event decision power from general assembly to the board is
unacceptable, because the board intends to pass this important proposal
hastily without giving all federations sufficient time to respond.
-
The proposed budget changes are intended to increase the spending, whereas
the ECU management has yet to attempt to collect 100,000€ worth of
debts from three organizers and has yet find one Euro worth of sponsorship
after their six month mandate.
-
Sofia rules divide the rule set of the world championship cycle, and this
division hurts the image of chess; therefore, such proposal should be implemented
not on a continental, but on a global level.
-
The dress code proposal burdens many of the smaller European chess federations
financially, because it is not backed up by a continental sponsorship program.
-
The Bilbao rules would not only bring chaos to rating and title calculations,
but also hurt the image of chess by splitting the rule set across the world
championship cycle.
-
A copyright for moves cannot be enforced and would only discourage the
media to promote chess.
We hope that you, the esteemed managers and delegates of the esteemed federations
of the ECU, will be convinced by the end of this letter that these ineffectual
proposals that could have very negative consequences for European and for world
chess. We invite you to reject all of these proposals at the Extra Ordinary
General Assembly in Aix-les-Bains.
EUROPE BELONGS US! IT IS OURS! YOU SHOULD REACT AS WELL!
Gens Una Sumus
Respectfully yours,
Ali Nihat YAZICI
President of Turkish Chess Federation
In a
more detailed version of his letter TCF President says:
(Their) proposal to change the statutes is absolutely illegal, because the
member federations should be informed about statute changes well in advance,
so that the federations can evaluate the proposals with sufficient time on
their clock to prepare their reaction. Although we have an ordinary general
assembly in Crete in November, they want to change the statutes during the
extraordinary general assembly in Aix-les-Bains, because they want to shift
the power of ECU from the general assembly to the ECU board. Then, under the
control of Mr. Danailov, the ECU board is going to use event organizations
as political weapons: they will give these events to anyone they want.
Based on the arguments listed above, as the Turkish Chess Federation,
we declare that if the statutes are changed in Aix-les-Bains, we will sue
the ECU directly to cancel this change. This item is obviously the most
important of the ECU board's proposed changes. We hope that they will understand
their legal mistake and correct it by withdrawing their proposal to change
the statute.
There is also an elucidation on why the copyright of moves "will only
help chess disappear from newspapers – nothing else." Food for thought
there.
