12 January 2017

Chess Ethics and the Suspensions of Federations

The final topic I want to cover from Spectating the 87th FIDE Congress (December 2016), is

87. Ethics Commission report to General Assembly.

Last year, in Ethics in Chess Politics - Stories (November 2015), it took me considerable time to understand the main cases tackled by the Ethics Commission:-

  • 'Case 5/2014: Complaint of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov against Ignatius Leong and Garry Kasparov regarding agreements' and 'Case 7/2014: Complaint of the Philippines and Kenya Chess Federations against Kirsan Ilyumzhinov'

  • 'Case 8/2014: Complaint by Kirsan Ilyumzhinov against Garry Kasparov regarding an unsigned / proposed agreement for the support of the Salvadorian Chess Federation' and 'Case 10/2014: Complaint of Garry Kasparov against Margaret Murphy, Darcy Lima and Bharat Singh regarding alleged irregularities in Electoral Commission'

  • 'Case 13/2014: Complaint of European Chess Federation against S Danailov, V Sakotic and S Stoisavljenic' and 'Case 14/2014: Complaint of Montenegro Chess Federation against V Sakotic and S Stoisavljenic'

  • 'Case 4/2015: Complaint by K Georgiev, S Stoichkov and M Stoynev against Bulgarian Chess Federation' and 'Case 5/2015: Complaint by Bulgarian Chess Federation against Z Azmaiparashvili and T Tsorbatzoglou'

  • 'Case 3/2015: Complaint by Michaela Sandu against Natalia Zhukova and 14 other players'

This year the relevant facts are available in a new FIDE subdomain: ethics.fide.com. One further evolution worth noting is an attachment to the report of the Ethics Commission:-

Recommendation for the suspension of the Bulgarian Chess Federation (BCF) as federation member of FIDE.

This marks the second time that FIDE has suspended a member federation for ethical reasons. The first, also in 2016, was ASEAN; according to its constitution,

founded on 28 May 2000, Vung Tau City, Vietnam [...] founding member-federations were the national chess federations of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam

This suspension stemmed from Case 5/2014 ('Complaint of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov against Ignatius Leong and Garry Kasparov'). Will these suspensions have the desired effect? We should find out at the next FIDE Congress.

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