Tuesday, February 18, 2014

According to Malcolm

Daily Telegraph Monday 17 February


Discuss.

(Starter for ten: if it's a big deal that Azmai once took a move back, does the same apply to Kasparov?)

[Thanks to Mr Bryant Sr and another reader]
[Andrew Paulson index]

9 comments:

AngusF said...

Isn't it funny: Malcolm is making out that Zurab Azmaiparashvili isn't a fit person but it wasn't so long ago that Azmai and his Georgian Chess Federation were the only allies of the ECF* in their legal action against FIDE on the appointment of extra FIDE Vice Presidents.

*I say the ECF but ECF Council knew nothing of the legal action and the ECF Board only knew of one of the two legal cases which comprised the legal action.

Anonymous said...

On a side note I would like to ask that you boys leave Raymond Keene OBE alone. The continuous persecution of this gentleman cannot go on any more.

I don't want to see another Robert Maxwell or Lord Lucan situation developing. He is 66 years old and is a pensioner. Will you boys leave him alone please. I worry for his mental health, such is the abuse he has to suffer. The constant torment could send him over the egde.

I am not saying he is perfect by any means but what he has contributed to British chess is immeasurable.

I would advise that you boys meet with Mr. Keene over a fine dinner and wine and work things out.

Anonymous said...

The ECF could really do with a James Robertson Justice type of figure right now. I think a few skulls need cracking together.

Nigel Short said...

Angus, you keep droning in your trademark, tedious, obsessive fashion about 2 court cases. I was there in Lausanne. Only from a purely technical legal angle were there two cases. In practice, there was just one case. You think you are making a clever and important point, but you are barking up the wrong tree altogether.

ejh said...

I can understand your being uncomfortable with detail Nigel, but let me remind you that you deliberately omitted to inform ECF Counci of the very large and very important detail that their organisation wase involved in the CAS case. It's the sort of thing that brings secretive ECF manouevres into disreptute.

Anonymous said...

The fracas was when Azmai lacked the appropriate security pass and took objection to a security guard's attempts to evict him. Really nothing to do with his integrity.

AngusF said...

In response to Nigel’s comment about the relevance of the second case (in the legal action taken by the ECF and Georgian Chess Federation against FIDE and concerning the appointment of extra FIDE Vice Presidents):

First some facts (taken from the decision text of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) - see in particular points 18, 19, 20 and 23 on page 6):

- The first case was submitted on 24 Feb 2011 and was targeted against a decision of the FIDE Presidential Board not to overturn the decision of the FIDE General Assembly on the appointment of extra VPs. CAS rejected this case, citing that the Presidential Board had no power to overrule a decision of the General Assembly.
- The second case was submitted on 29 Mar 2011 and targeted against the original decision of the FIDE General Assembly to appoint more VPs than FIDE statutes allowed. CAS rejected this case as it wasn’t raised in time.
- Before the second case was submitted, FIDE twice objected that the first case was submitted late.
And, it’s clear from the Summary Timeline document produced by the ECF Board (see here) that the Board knew nothing about the second case. This fact was confirmed by Andrew Farthing, the then CEO, at an ECF Council meeting.

For me, there are three things here:
1. The need for a second case makes me wonder about the competence of those calling the shots.
2. The second case is targeted at a decision made by the FIDE General Assembly and that’s different to a decision taken by the Presidential Board. It mightn’t, for example, go down so well with the representatives of the National Federations which make up the General Assembly and certainly it’s not so easy to claim to that the legal action is against the FIDE President and his close associates.
3. Objections were made about whether the first case was raised in time and you might think: could that also be relevant to the second case. Certainly it turned out to be that way: it’s the reason the second case was lost.

And then you come to the point: had the ECF Board been informed of the second case and of the objections on timeliness, mightn’t it have wanted to reconsider whether it supported the legal action? Certainly it should have been given the opportunity to reconsider... but it wasn’t given that opportunity because it wasn’t told. Somebody didn’t communicate the information to the ECF Board.

Nigel may not think this is important but I do.

Anonymous said...

I thought it had been established that the ECF were just acting as a flag of convenience for Kasparov and his lawyers, so once the ECF Directors had agreed to this, subsequent legal tactics were out of their hands. The irony is that the one Director who rightly opposed this was unwilling to find a way of leaking what had happened. The secrecy of who was behind the action being presumed necessary by the American legal "experts", so any sort of disclosure or perhaps even public speculation was undesirable.

RdC

Anonymous said...

He had all the charm of a malnourished pigeon.

If Sergei Movsesian loves to play chess, would he be an "Obsessian Movsesian"?

If I saw Baadur Jobava in a church, am I then considered to be a "Jobavas Witness"?

Even an inebriated wildebeest would know why Andrew Martin played the execrable 'Biafran Spade' bidding system...