Just four months ago we were stepping on the fast train to the future with the election as President of Andrew Paulson, a train nuclear-powered by the energy that shone, apparently, out of Mr Paulson's entrepreneurial arse.
Now that very same arse is being kicked out of office - not by the electorate who put him there but by a small group of conspirators among the ECF Board.
Not that you would have known this in the five days since Saturday 8, when the attempted coup occurred, since none of the parties involved saw fit to inform ECF members about their action. Neither the reasons behind them nor even the fact of the actions having taken place was made public.
Indeed it wasn't until Professor David Robertson took the trouble to post about it, on the English Chess Forum, several days later, that rumours that had circulated about the coup were confirmed, on Thursday, by ECF Chief Executive Phil Ehr.
I mean at least in a real coup you get military music on the radio.
Now given that I am a member of the English Chess Federation, to which organisation I pay a subscription, I take offence at this.
Removing the elected president of a representative body overnight is a serious act. You don't just do it and the members don't even get to know. Don't get to know it happened, don't get to know why.
As far as I'm concerned, this is a statement of the obvious.
Still, it's not the first time, is it? Not the first time - not even the first time recently - that something really serious has happened and nobody bothered to tell us.
Curiously, that episode, like this one, had a dispute involving Nigel Short at its core.
On the previous occasion, it involved a case being carried out in the ECF's name - that's my name, and possibly yours - which ECF members were not allowed to know about, given that the ECF's delegate to FIDE, one Nigel Short, decided not to say it was happening. On this occasion, however, it involved an attempt by Paulson to remove the same Nigel Short as FIDE delegate. which manouevre met with the aforementioned attempt to remove him, Paulson, instead.
What a coincidence.
Now maybe it's just a coincidence. It may be that Nigel's dispute with Paulson was totally irrelevant to the conspirators' attempt to unseat Paulson and that it just so happened that there were competing no confidence motions at the same emergency meeting.
However, as the conspirators haven't bothered to make any public statement of their purpose in carrying out such a drastic step, I'm not in a position to evaluate their actual reasons*. I can, however, say that Nigel's dissatisfaction with Paulson was public and loud, whereas no other complaints against Paulson had been made in any public forum of which I am aware.
OK. It may be that they didn't want to make their complaints in public in case it was felt to be disruptive to the smooth running of the organisation, an argument I can respect.
However, if your priority was the smooth running of the organisation, you wouldn't plunge that organisation into a bloody great crisis by trying to organise a coup, would you?
Course you wouldn't. I mean either the grievances are important enough to raise openly, or they're not important enough to unseat the president over.(Or you could, you know, resign. It's less disruptive.)
So, for the while, I'm going to assume that FIDE politics are more than likely the real source of this particular conflict. Regardless of any other reasons, grievances or problems, serious or otherwise, the conspirators may have had.
And nobody's got any business unseating ECF Presidents over FIDE politics. Because FIDE politics aren't what the ECF is for.
The ECF is there to help organise and promote chess in England. It has a vote in FIDE politics. But that's a very minor facet of its existence. Secret legal cases shouldn't be carried out in the ECF's name because of FIDE politics. And neither FIDE delegates nor ECF presidents should be removed mid-term, or threatened with removal, because of FIDE politics. Not even openly. Let alone like this.
Now I think Andrew Paulson is a clown and a bully, and one, moreover, whose word is not to be believed. I think it was stupid to elect him President. But other people thought otherwise, and that at least has to be respected.
Because we're not talking about an irreparable dispute between board members at a wholly private company. We're talking about the elected leader of a representative body with subs-paying members. If you respect, at all, the decisions or opinions of these people, you don't behave like this.
Now I appreciate that both sides, not just the conspirators, kept quiet in the first few days after the vote. Conceivably it was agreed to do so. (Not that I can know, what with nobody having said so or anything.) As far as I'm concerned that would just make both sides equally guilty, a common theme in contemporary chess politics.
I also appreciate - as I've said above - that this sort of thing has happened before. So in a sense, however abnormal it ought to be, it's not so abnormal in the ECF, where there has normally been a preference for providing a minimum of information and keeping things confidential. It's cultural as much as personal. The normal way of doing business in the ECF has been - speaking generally - to work like a company, with a policy of confidentiality at board level, and to say that if members don't like this, then they can makes their voices heard at election time. That is, if you like, the organisational culture.
Trouble is, in the first place, if that election time no longer means anything, then what then? What now?
Trouble also is, in the second place, that this culture is the problem, because it has led some people to believe that the ECF can be their personal plaything. That the members are no more than a rubber stamp. That once the members have been consulted once a year (in what is very far from an ideal fashion, democratically speaking) then that's as far as it needs to go and people who wish to do so can play whatever factional and political games they want.
That's how, and why, you end up with secret CAS cases, with CJ de Mooi using the ECF as his personal networking project, with attempts to remove the president that you and I don't apparently need to know about. That's the system and that's the culture. Both system and culture need to change. Because they're not working very well, are they?
But that's as generous as I'm prepared to be. It's the organisational culture - up to a point. But at the same time, just about everybody involved, including the president (perhaps especially the president) has behaved in a way that brings them personally as well as the organisation into disrepute.
It may be I'm being terribly unfair. It may be I'm leaving out all sort of things that I don't happen to know about. Well, if I don't happen to know about them, why would that be, eh?
If any Board members don't like my interpretation of events (and if they reckon it's not to do with FIDE politics, somebody really needs to tell Nigel Short, who is behaving otherwise) then they should have given me their own interpretation. Preferably before they acted and certainly immediately they had done so. But they didn't.
So I don't trust anybody involved. And if I don't trust anybody involved, it may because nobody involved is to be trusted.
Two years ago, I wrote:
It's one thing that the ECF facilitates a legal action against Kirsan. It's quite another that it doesn't think that's any business of the subs-paying members. It's one thing that CJ de Mooi can't distinguish his private from his official role: it's quite another that he's indulged. Who is the ECF for? It's not for Garry Kasparov or CJ de Mooi or Ray Keene. It's for us, the members. It would be appreciated if it would act as if the members were its authority and its priority. Independent in our interests, and accountable to us.Since then, nothing, apparently, has changed. It damned well ought to have done, but it hasn't. The ECF is still a plaything for FIDE factions and it is apprently organised, not on the principle of the authority of its members, but instead, by coups.
The ECF should be independent and accountable, and it is neither.
[* I'm aware that the draft minutes of the meeting are available. But absent any commentary from the conspirators themselves, I'm not in a position to take those minutes as a full statement of their motives, let alone accept those motives in good faith.]
[Andrew Paulson index]
[Nigel Short index]
37 comments:
If as seems likely a meeting of the ECF voting membership is called, which side do you think they will support? Do you think they will support the group of five directors who have been involved with English chess for many years and who have a number of votes under their control? Or will they support an outsider with no previous connections with British chess who was within discussion distance of entering a dubious business deal with the FIDE President? For that matter, having consistently supported an ECF position of opposition to the continued re-election of the current FIDE President, why they would support a reversal of this policy which had general support until the candidacy of an outsider with FIDE connections?
You may not like it, but the trigger point seems very much about the ECF's relationship with FIDE.
IF AP had a domestic agenda that he wanted to get on with, the FIDE issue had to be set aside. Nigel was always going to campaign against Kirsan, it could have been a compromise that when he did so, it was in his own name and not that of the ECF FIDE Delegate.
Although the dissident directors seemed to have lost their voice, it does seem that AP was trying to interfere with the routine running of English chess, rather more than you would expect a President or even a CEO to do.
RdC
Just to add to my previous comment, there isn't a failed coup. Under UK Company law, it isn't usually possible for Directors to dismiss one of their number. All they can do, is invite him to resign. If he declines, their next sanction is to call a meeting of the voting membership and put that proposition to them. If they had done this before attempting an internal resolution, the obvious question would have been as why they couldn't resolve this among themselves.
RdC
Nigel was always going to campaign against Kirsan, it could have been a compromise that when he did so, it was in his own name and not that of the ECF FIDE Delegate.
When offered a compromise, Nigel atually rejected it, didn't he?
Or will they support an outsider with no previous connections with British chess who was within discussion distance of entering a dubious business deal with the FIDE President?
I don't know. I do recall that Council wasn't at all amused by the CAS case hi-jinks, even though they were not at all pro-Kirsan. It may be they take a similar view now.
And I also know that they voted for the aforesaid outsider with no previous connections with Briish chess, the only thing being known about him was that he worked with FIDE.
So if anybody gives it "oh, I had no idea about him" then I'm not likely to be enormously impressed.
But that's always the syndrome, isn't it? ECF votes for individual, ignoring warnings about them. ECF then has huge crisis. ECF then disposes of individual, blames it all on individual rather than themselves, and proceeds to make the same mistake again...
Justin, you do write a pompous bunch of old arse, don't you?
Including the ridiculous supposition above that the only reason that the ECF board could be trying to remove Andrew Paulson is in defence of Nigel Short, when the minutes of the meeting taken by Phil Ehr include clear statements by several directors that their reasons for loss of confidence in Paulson are his frequent and adverse interference into their work for the ECF. It's all there - in black and white.
Why bother writing your contentious piece of bollocks, above? It doesn't add to the sum of human knowledge in any way. Sometimes you have useful information to impart, but more often you are simply sounding off, and doing so in a way which hinders rather than helps transparency and honest dealing.
I write this in the knowledge that you will more than likely bloviate about the moral high ground or even blast back in some ridiculous and personal manner. Never mind.
Paul McKeown
Hi Paul. While it's good to see you communicating in your usual courteous manner, it might have been as well to have read the piece properly before you posted. I would particuarly draw your attention to the little bracketed passage with asterisky thing at the end.
(Thing is, Paul, when we have a public, bitter and ongoing controversy invlving Andrew Paulson and his links to Kirsan, and when that controversy is interrupted by an attempt to remove Mr Paulson from his post, I do not immediately think "this is clearly nothing to do with Andrew Paulson's links to Kirsan".)
Well my vote will be going to Ray Keene. His wisdom and experience will take us to calmer waters. He is the only man for the job in my opinion.
Paul, please admit to your plans. I am aware of the rumours circulating the chess community regarding your plans to take over the ECF. These plans will not succeed though without assistance. I would recommend that Ernie Lazenby and Raymond Keene OBE be put in temporary charge of proceedings. You would be appointed as their apprentice until as such time as you are able to oversee things. In these desperate times, this may be the best solution. I haven't slept for several days because of these concerns.
Anonymous - I'll leave that to Saint-Just of the Committee of Public Safety.
The truth of the matter is that the ECF board members attempted to remove AP from the ECF presidency not because of his links with Kirsan and/or FIDE, but rather for the sole reason that he is a 'yank'. Middle aged men with large bellies from Essex and other home counties will not tolerate a 'yank' running the show. Indeed it is reported that at the recent meeting AP didn't eat any of the Mr. Kipling cakes on offer and did not drink any tea. He chose to drink coffee against the wishes of the other members present. To some, a 'yank' must not be allowed to run English chess, a clear retort to the American war of independence.
@Paul McKeown: "[T]he minutes of the meeting taken by Phil Ehr include clear statements by several directors that their reasons for loss of confidence in Paulson are his frequent and adverse interference into their work for the ECF. It's all there - in black and white."
Well, yes, there are strong suggestions of interference but does that merit a vote of no confidence? Wouldn’t it have been better to discuss the complaints and to try to resolve them without a vote?
I think what Julian Clissold is attributed as saying in the draft minutes of the emergency meeting is spot on:
"JC:
i. JC had made most of his points in a pre-meeting paper. This should be part of the Board’s record of the meeting.
ii. There are two acid tests:
- What has the Board done to rectify the above disagreements?
- Have DO and LC brought their issues formally to the Board for resolution?
iii. The Board has no prior history of Board discussions about the issues raised in the vote.
iv. Board had not tried hard enough to seek an improved relationship before a vote of confidence was called.
v. The Board has given no consideration to what happens after the Board agrees a vote of no confidence? It cannot go forward with a poor President/Board relationship and has no alternative plan.
vi. The Board has not thought about the consequences; Council will think that the Board has not addressed this failure and that directors who are otherwise competent and professional, have not considered how a new scenario would be handled.
vii. Not heard that the Board has sought solutions.
viii. For NS the Board also needs a solution; it was not clever on his part to go the Sunday Times and risked reputational damage to the ECF; however, this is a side issue and is not well handled with a confidence motion; the main issue is about the Board itself and how it can function if the vote is agreed."
In my view, the statements attributed to the Directors deserve to be scrutinised (possibly this will happen when the Directors next come before Council).
One thing I’d like to know is: which Director was it who marshalled five of his colleagues to call the Emergency meeting with the agenda as it was?
There were many, not least some of the main writers on this blog, who thought that the AP agenda for change was mostly just waffle. What does seem to have emerged is that for what substance does exist to be implemented requires a compliant Board of yes-men. It appears that AP intends put forward names to the ECF Council of those willing to dance to his tune, rather than, as he alleges, to Malcolm Pein's.
But will he take a leaf out of his draft business partner's book and offer incentives to Delegates or organisations in exchange for support?
I have no knowledge of which director instigated the emergency board meeting. I do know that one of the directors has form, even before he became a director, for calling for EGMs to discuss a relatively trivial dispute over FIDE rating fees and for instigating a document telling a previous President what he could and couldn't do if elected.
Whether the issues of who is on the Board and FIDE Delegate is going to occupy the April Finance meeting or whether a separate EGM will be called remains to be seen.
RdC
A separate EGM is unlikely to be called:
a) it's expensive; and
b) it requires three weeks' notice (by which time it's nearly April)
Further, there's a sizeable wedge of cluelessness abroad, not least among S&B bloggers, about how Boards of companies (must) function. God help me, I've poured more scorn than most over the ECF Board in the past. But on this occasion, it has acted correctly in the circumstances facing it.
There has been no coup, attempted or otherwise. The only person to use the word 'coup' has been Andrew Paulson. I'm astonished Justin Horton has gone along with Paulson's personal myth-building.
The fact of the matter is that the Board is grossly split: Paulson & Clissold v. the rest. A divided Board does not constitute a Board in law since the Board is the corporate entity as determined by the Members. And it can only possess one voice, a collective unified voice. Hence, in company law, a Board isn't a kind of committee. In law, it is the Corporation.
David R
Thing is, thouygh, the ECF isn't just a company. In the eyes of its subs-paying members, it's their representative and organising body, and as such has duties towards them which an ordinary company would not (i.e. there would be no comparable body to consider). It won't do to consider it simply as a company.
As for whether it's a coup - well, when a president of any organisation or entity is unseated, or an attempt is made to unseat them, suddenly, on the quiet, on the basis of complaints which nobody has made public, then I think it is well described as a coup, whoever is doing the describing.
But will he take a leaf out of his draft business partner's book and offer incentives to Delegates or organisations in exchange for support?
Or, indeed, the book of his draft business partner's opponent.
Angus French said: "Well, yes, there are strong suggestions of interference but does that merit a vote of no confidence? Wouldn’t it have been better to discuss the complaints and to try to resolve them without a vote?"
There have been many dicussions over the last couple of months, involving Directors and others, to try to achieve precisely that end.
Paulson simply wouldn't listen.
Even after the vote, attempts to reach some form of resolution continued for several days.
Hence the news blackout which so agitates Justin Horton.
For the avoidance of doubt I was privy to nothing during that period.
David Sedgwick
The EGM or April Council meeting is going to have a convoluted series of motions.
Just speculating or guessing there would be
(a) a motion by AP or his supporters to remove five directors and Nigel.
(b) a motion by five directors or their supporters to remove AP.
Presumably once Directors have been removed, it reverts back to the rump Board to appoint replacements.
You could have motions which asked for endorsements of five new Directors plus a FIDE Delegate or one new President.
Strictly speaking, would these be binding?
I could imagine many ECF voting members would be totally confused by the row and may welcome anyone who could tell them what it was about. The ECF Board having been mostly silent for three months, leaves it uncertain about whether they decided to endorse a neutral position or worse with regard to the FIDE election, leaving Nigel in the cold, or a pro-Kasparov position excluding AP, or even plunged into indecision refusing to have a policy. I did suggest on the ecforum that the FIDE election should be a topic at the April meeting, which got a negative response, surprising at the time, but explained by subsequent events.
A few crafty leaks and the Board could have tried to gauge the opinions of both the voting and non-voting membership by reference to the ecforum and other areas such as this blog where such issues are discussed.
I was trying to work out how few people amongst ECF voting membership you needed to persuade to dismiss a Director, FIDE Delegate or President. If they all had undirected proxies, it could well be fewer than is healthy.
RdC
There have been many dicussions over the last couple of months, involving Directors and others, to try to achieve precisely that end.
So by your own account, David, this has been going on for ages and nobody thought it appropriate to share it with the members.
And the upshot is - an enormous crisis and a lot of angry people.
You can see why I think this is an inappropriate and dysfunctional way of doing things?
Sigh, what a farce.
Directors of ECF should ask themselves this one highly pertinent question: am I acting in the best interests of English chess?
From this member's point of view I would suggest that the power-hungry Paulson, the revolting Nigel Short and all the anally-retentive directorate have totally lost sight of this question.
It wouldn't be so sad had it not been so blindingly obvious that it would all end in tears. Paulson, Short and an arcane organisational structure are a recipe for disaster. Yet these people were more or less democratically elected. How anyone could have voted for such an unproven and shady character as Paulson beggars belief. Sigh.
Unfortunately any well-motivated and hard-working individuals (who might do a great job for English chess rather than focus on personal self-aggrandisement) would not touch this organisation with a 10 foot pole. At least that is this member's position.
In response to David Sedgwick's comment (on my comment) in which David said, for example, "There have been many dicussions over the last couple of months, involving Directors and others, to try to achieve precisely that end ["that end" being a resolution not necessitating a vote of (no) confidence].":
If this is so, why did Non-executive Director, Julian Clissold, say what he said (and which I quoted in my original comment)? For example:
"ii. There are two acid tests:
- What has the Board done to rectify the above disagreements?
- Have DO and LC brought their issues formally to the Board for resolution?
iii. The Board has no prior history of Board discussions about the issues raised in the vote."
Perhaps, David has touched on something important - the row between Short and Paulson has been brewing for months but the specific complaints raised by certain Directors at the Board meeting are new...
I agree with what Jon H said at 9:40AM today.
ejh said:
"So by your own account, David, this has been going on for ages and nobody thought it appropriate to share it with the members.
And the upshot is - an enormous crisis and a lot of angry people.
You can see why I think this is an inappropriate and dysfunctional way of doing things?"
Frankly, Justin, no I don't see that.
Speaking for myself, I don't believe in washing dirty linen in public unless and until it becomes unavoidable.
David Sedgwick
Well you know, David, there are different definitions of "see" than "agree with", but as you will.
As it happens, I can see your point of view. But I think you may find it a lot more trouble to explain in public the deposition of an elected president than to explain in public a disagreement with him.
Partly, because in the latter case you may have a lot less sympathy from the public who have this suddenly foisted on them.
Have there not been at least three threats to remove elected people from office?
First there was AP's threat to remove Nigel from office using a vote of the ECF Council.
Next there was the Board level motion of no confidence in AP by the gang of 5.
Finally the counter threat by AP to remove the elected gang of 5 and replace them with his own nominees.
At a guess, I could see the ECF Council voting to remove both the principle troublemakers, essentially telling them that if they want to fight about FIDE and the ECU to do it outside the ECF. A motion to replace by placemen relatively well known and respected incumbents elected six months earlier is rather less likely to succeed.
As far as FIDE policy is concerned, is anybody prepared to stand up at an ECF Council meeting supporting a motion that the ECF should vote for Kirsan, let alone campaign for him?
RdC
ejh said:
"But I think you may find it a lot more trouble to explain in public the deposition of an elected president than to explain in public a disagreement with him.
Partly, because in the latter case you may have a lot less sympathy from the public who have this suddenly foisted on them."
I think you mean "in the former case", Justin.
You may prove to be correct. But I hope not, both for the sake of the ECF and for the sake of the individuals who will then find out the hard way that the Board majority were right.
Angus F stands to be among those people, if there is any truth in the suggestion that he will be one of Paulson's replacements.
I think you mean "in the former case", Justin.
You correct me correctly!
In response to "Unknown's" comment at 2:58PM: This Angus F will not be one of Paulson's "replacements".
AngusF said...
"In response to "Unknown's" comment at 2:58PM: This Angus F will not be one of Paulson's "replacements".
Thank you for that, Angus."
I apologise for failing to sign my previous comment. That was a complete oversight on my part.
David Sedgwick
No problem David, the Blogger comments system is a notorious pain for everybody.
(Also, we guessed!)
Who do the board members have lined up to be the next ECF president? Gary Glitter? Jack the Ripper? David Icke? Gyles Brandreth?
As captain of the Essex Constitutionals quiz team that participated in the BBC program 'Master Team' on April 4th 1988, I must state the following.
The addendum to the amendment of point 17.4 articulated by RdC in the recent ECF AGM draft committee meeting was unconstitutional. Elected officials holding two post simultaneously are not allowed to second motions that refer to the framework of financial obligations for sponsors of chess events in England. As a result of this oversight another EGM was convened and the proposal in the aforementioned addendum was nullified. I just wanted to make that clear. The minutes of these meetings will be made available to board members in due course.
A 'yank' here. :)
Fascinating stuff. The United States Chess Federation (USCF) went through similiar turmoil a few years ago, with an attempted coup and subsequent lawsuits.
==ejh (at 9:55 am) wrote==
Trouble also is, in the second place, that this culture is the problem, because it has led some people to believe that the ECF can be their personal plaything. That the members are no more than a rubber stamp. That once the members have been consulted once a year (in what is very far from an ideal fashion, democratically speaking) then that's as far as it needs to go and people who wish to do so can play whatever factional and political games they want.
==end ejh quote==
A member organisation is not a democracy. As you later pointed out, nor is it a company. Since it is impossible in good time to negotiate a contract with a large voting body, it's a typical structure for a member organisation to delegate that authority to a single executive (CEO, president, what have you). And between meetings of the full body, the executive is answerable to a Board of Directors. (Quite why the ECF needs the additional layer of "Council" is hard for me to imagine.) Certain decisions of the CEO need to be ratified by the full body, others not, this should be spelt out in the charter.
The problems arise when a "dynamic" individual with weak ties to the history of the organisation dangles the prospect of sponsorship "money" in front of the members. The tantalising argument is that the "old ways" are precisely why the organisation is moribund, what is needed are "fresh ideas" and an injection of "human capital".
It's funny that the members fall for this reasoning, since "old ways" could be translated as "chess the way we have always played it", and "fresh ideas" could be translated as "flashing lights", "pom-poms", and anything else that has "Probably Got Nothing to do with chess [SM]". And "human capital" could best be translated as "I know a rich guy, just don't ask what he wants in return".
Here's a fairly tame example of an executive having "weak ties" to the history. In the USCF they once had an Executive Director stand in front of the annual meeting to explain that the USCF was getting out of the books and equipment trade. Apparently it was a money-losing division. He declared: "It's not the mission of the USCF to sell books and equipment". At which point someone read to him from the charter: "The USCF shall sell books and equipment to members at a discount" (or similar words). True, the division was losing money, but it was losing money to the members!
==AngusF (Tue Feb 18, 12:14:00 pm 2014) wrote==
[...] why did Non-executive Director, Julian Clissold, say what he said (and which I quoted in my original comment)? [...] "iii. The Board has no prior history of Board discussions about the issues raised in the vote."
==end AngusF quote==
Excellent question, why did he say PRECISELY that? History of Board discussions is not quite the same as actual Board discussions. IIRC, failure to keep decent minutes was one of the accusations leveled at AP?! Shoddiness is bad enough, one hopes it was not calculated.
Just to clarify the structure of the ECF, there is no separation of Executive and Board of Directors. so you have a small Board, currently of 9, who are supposed to make sure that a wider team of two or three paid employees and a several dozen volunteer officers do whatever is necessary to run the subset of English chess that the ECF have responsibility for.
You could, if affordable, have a paid team to run the ECF, but unlike the USCF it isn't a commercial business selling or trying to sell books and equipment.
ECF Council is a special name for a meeting of the voting membership. This is a mixture of representatives of local organisations and Congresses who ultimately have the power to elect or remove the Directors. OMOV it isn't.
RdC
I'd be willing to come back to the Board if the situation arose. I'm not sure I'd be a good President, but I think I'd be able to avoid being a disastrous one.
Well, surely better somebody who knows his own weaknesses but is beholden to nobody than the handpicked candidate of one faction or another.
I would support Jack Rudd being appointed ECF president. It could be a poison chalice though. Scheming board members with their own agendas will cause havoc. The infighting, bitterness, dissension, and egotism is blighting English chess to the point of destruction. These malcontents do not represent the rank and file of English chess. There needs to be a root and branch clear out in the upper echelons of English chess. The dead wood needs to be removed permanently. New blood is needed. Only then will there be any possibility of hope. These are dark dark days, the nuclear winter of English chess...
The document now published by chessvibes
http://www.chessvibes.com/sites/default/files/pdf/140114%20Report%20ECU%20Short%20Zurab.pdf shows a complete breakdown of the relationship between the ECF President and the ECF FIDE Delegate. Five of the other directors concluded that the conflict had to be resolved and they were against the President for reasons not yet fully public. The document attempts to justify taking moves back and ratings manipulation and throws in personal attacks on Kasparov and Short for good measure.
The nature of UK Company Law is that if one of them didn't step down voluntarily, the issue would have to be put to the wider voting membership, but they first needed to attempt to resolve it within the Board.
RdC
The document attempts to justify taking moves back and ratings manipulation and throws in personal attacks on Kasparov and Short for good measure.
Another way of putting it would be that the document observes that Short and Kasparov have themselves engaged in, or accepted, practices as bad as those which they condemn in Azmai, and that it makes some very serious accusations against Danailov.
(Not necessarily a better way of putting it than yours, but not necessarily a worse one, either.)
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