TCF Renews The Bid

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TCF Renews The Bid

Turkish Chess Federation renews the bid for European Individual Women Championship, with 10.000€ increment of Prize Fund

logo_gaziantep_kucuk The President of Turkish Chess Federation, Mr.Ali Nihat YAZICI, has published an open letter on 17 February 2011 and declared that TSF renews the bid for the 2011 European Individual Women Chess Championship in Gaziantep, with 10.000€ increasement in the prize fund. The event was supposed to be organised from 19 March till 1st April. The prize fund of the event would be a record in women chess. Also European Women Rapid and European Women Blitz would be organised just before individual event. The details of open letter and reasons are given below.

17 February 2011

Ankara

Dear Chess Media,

For attention of all European Federations,

As you know, the TSF (Turkish Chess Federation), after the conflict between ECU and TSF, reaffirmed its offer to organize the 2011 European Individual Women’s Championship, with the biggest prize fund in history, in Turkey. The ECU responded with a statement that they are following a new bidding procedure.

The FIDE Presidential Board meeting, from which Mr. Silvio Danailov was regrettably absent, considered the subject (because it involves a FIDE event), and the President of FIDE Mr.Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has sent a letter in respect of the decision of the FIDE PB, asking the ECU to make an agreement. (Appendix: the letter of President to Mr. Danailov )

The ECU immediately replied to this letter (Appendix: ECU answer ), mentioning that the TSF did not pay any guarantee or any deposit fee for the event. That is true, and technically we should have done so, but we were never invoiced by the ECU, nor asked for anything, and the ECU even emailed us on 8 December saying “we will not insist on these details“! (Appendix:ECU General Secretary e-mail ) As we know, the organizers in France for the European Individual Chess Championship are in a similar position. I am sure they have not been asked either. We do not accuse them, nor are we suggesting that the ECU now ask them for a deposit fee or bank guarantee. We just want to point out to you the apparent double standards of the ECU management, who earlier accused us of this. Also I should clarify here that ECU General Secretary and President were against to the late entry fees, which will occur in France.

Instead of wasting time on such double standards, the ECU would do better to pursue the missing entry fees for the 2009 European Youth in Fermo, Italy (local organizers, not the Italian Federation), the 20% of prize fund for the 2008 European Individual Chess Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and the 20% of prize fund from the same event in Budva, Montenegro 2009, all of which are still outstanding. Perhaps Mr Danailov could start by chasing up his own federation, considering that he is the newly elected president.

As clearly stated at the FIDE Presidential Board meeting and in the subsequent letter, this European Championship is part of the World Championship Cycle, and the prize fund of any other organizer should not be less than the prize fund offered by the TSF. This world is a small world. We know that the ECU has been trying to give the event to some other federations, disregarding that condition. We are concerned that if the ECU continues to flout the FIDE PB and the FIDE President, then there may be actions proposed by TSF and taken by FIDE in legal way.

It seems that the ECU management wants to fight – with me, with TSF, with FIDE. They ignore their federations, they do not answer their members, they insult them, and they do not care for the sake of women’s chess. And then they do what they accuse others of… Is this “afters” from the ECU election last year? If so, it is a political mistake, and a big one. We call on Mr. Danailov again to forget the elections, and to act logically for the sake of European and women’s chess.

To demonstrate our good will and our determination to develop women’s chess, we have decided to repeat our bid (OPEN BID )with exactly the same conditions as before, except for one thing – we increase the record prize fund by another €10.000. (Appendix is the new prize fund proposal ). We repeat our bid with the attached regulations in official way. We hope that ECU will publish all bids by the end of the deadline they mentioned, according to ECU regulations. Then we may see who makes the best offer to organise the event.

Why do we increase the prize fund?