GCF Asks What Is Mr. Danailov's Aim of Supporting South African Bid (OPEN LETTER)
Время публикации: 11.04.2014 23:35 | Последнее обновление: 11.04.2014 23:42
Georgian Chess Federation (GCF) publishes an open letter asking why the president of the European Chess Union Silvio Danailov publicly supports the bid of African Cameroon, but not European Georgia for the Olympiad 2018.
Several days ago Danailov tweeted the "chess puzzle":
Chess puzzle of the day:Why Makro&friends "FIDE PB" illegally extended the deadline for submitting bids for the 2018 Olympiad to April 15th?
We would like to draw your attention to some important issues:
As each and everyone of you, we also do our best in order to popularize chess throughout the country, to promote its development and make it one of the most prominent sport activities! Therefore, we have done a lot recently, such as:
1. Annual budget of Georgian Chess Federation reached an unprecedented figure of one million Euros;
2. Georgia will host the top class Women's Grand Prix (June) and Youth European Championships (October);
3. Last year, with the governmental support of 250000 Euros Tbilisi International Chess Academy started operations;
4. Created five years state program for the development of Georgian Chess Federation, which is in examination process by Georgian Government;
5. In 2015, Georgia will host World Chess Olympiad under 16;
6. In 2016, Nona Gaprindashvili 75th anniversary will be proceeded by World Championship under 8-10-12
According to all above mentioned, our federation has an ambition to seek farther opportunities. Therefore, Georgian Chess Federation and Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia met with great enthusiasm the idea of holding World Cup 2017 and World Chess Olympiad 2018 in Georgia, proposed by FIDE President Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov during his visit in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2013. Thereafter, the tedious work started in the field of budgeting issues of the chess boards.
As a result of our commitment and energy Georgian Government allocated unprecedented amount of money (14 462 500 Euros) from the state budget for holding both above mentioned corn petitions.
We prepared a BID and presented it to the FIDE Secretariat with the accordance to all the necessary standards and procedures.
One can imagine how surprised we were when heard that FIDE Presidential board, held on March 30 in Khanti-Mansinski, extended the BID application deadline until April 15. However, drawing from the global chess interests to hold the best possible chess Olympiad 2018, we decided not to protest, but to adapt to the decision made by the FIDE officials. We are sure that we've done everything to host the top class Olympiad and established equal living and playing conditions of European standards for each and every federation.
When we first heard about Mr. Danailov's puzzle released on his tweeter page we hoped that he would reveal the plans and secrets of FIDE leaders because as he was the representative of our European continent at the FIDE Presidential board meeting.
"Silvio Danailov @SilvioDanailov Apr 7: Chess puzzle of the day: Why Makro&friends "FIDE PB" illegally extended the deadline for submitting bids for the 2018 Olympiad to April 15th?"
Unfortunately, we were disappointed with the answer. We have not received any support from Mr. Danailov, but we discovered that president of the ECU (whose primary responsibility is to support and protect the interests of the European National Federations) openly supports 12 million USD bid of South Africa against Georgia's 20 million USD bid. (http://www.chessvibes.com/fide-extends-deadline-for-olympiad-bidding-south-africa-protests)
"Silvio Danailov @SilvioDanailov Apr 7: So far there are two official bids, the one from South Africa being a clear favorite. But they are opposition and need to receive a lesson"
"Silvio Danailov @SilvioDanailov Apr 7:That's why Makro&friends are preparing a new bid from Africa in order to provoke mess,grab some African votes& try to spoil SA bid #smart"
Besides, it should be noted that Georgian Chess federation has done its best to support Mr. Danailov's candidature to the ECU Presidential elections 2010 and helped him to overcome the crisis connected with the Women's European Championship in 2011 with holding one of the successful tournament in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Apart from all above mentioned we also found out that despite Georgian Arbiters' high qualifications none of them represented in the Tromso Olympiad Arbiters list sent by Mr. Danailov to FIDE.
Nevertheless, due to the fact that Mr. Zurab Azmaparashvili runs for ECU Presidential elections, we once again preferred not to respond to those unacceptable acts and tried to understand the political motivation of Mr. Danailov's decision.
Finally, we saw the official answer on FIDE website to the Danailov's Puzzle (http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/7884-2018-olympiad.html)and found out that he attempted to mislead the world chess community by representing the situation as if everyone except himself was guilty. We would like to ask a rhetorical question to the ECU President: what is Mr. Danailov's aim of abolishing the ECU regulations and supporting the South African bid.
Georgian Chess Federation is asking the honorable members of the ECU board:
1. To discuss and assess the facts of misleading Chess Society, abolishing our regulations and make appropriate and reasonable decision.
The President of the European Chess Union Silvio Danailov has written in his Twitter account (opened earlier in the year), "FIDE started an open war vs. ECU. For no reason, just to show power." Danailov suspects that FIDE is jealous about his organisation because of the European Chess Union's success in the European Parliament.
Silvio Danailov thinks that ECU and FIDE should consolidate and do everything they can in order Armenian team to be able to play at the Olympiad 2016 in Baku:
The Georgian Chess Federation sent an official bid for the Chess Olympiad 2018 and the World Cup 2017 to FIDE today. "Thanks to the personal efforts of the Deputy Minister of Sports and candidate for the post of ECU President, GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili, more than $20 millions are allocated to both events," - is said in the press reliese. About two millions will be spent on parallel development and promotion programs in Europe and the rest of the World.
Georgian GM Zurab Azmaiparashvili, now the first deputy Minister of Sports and Youth gave an interview to the newspaper Sport-Express in which he told about how was made the decision to hold one of the Women's Grand Prix stages in Tbilisi, Georgia:
Silvio Danailov's latest updates on his Twitter page enlighten some of the FIDE's recent decisions which weren't published on the official website of the organisation. We offer you them here:
Georgian Chess Federation and the Presidential Candidate for the European Chess Union Elections Zurab Azmaipashvillipropose ECU General Assembly in Tromso "to waive the President's Stipend from the annual ECU budget for the following reasons:
After reading the letter signed by the esteemed colleagues-champions, I also can't hide my disappointment and frustration. How come two outstanding chess players are puppets of other forces?
The official Newsletter of the European Chess Union informs about some of the decisions approved at ECU Board meeting in Bastia. It was held on June 7th-8th and was organized by the President of the Corsican Chess League, Mr. Leo Battesti.
The President of the European Chess Union Silvio Danailov uploaded Russian painter Ilya Repin's drawing "Zaporozhian Cossacks of Ukraine Writing a Letter in Reply to the Sultan of Turkey" on his Twitter page.
The President of the Georgian Chess Federation Gia Giorgadze has confirmed that his federation supported the protest by the English Chess federation against the actions of the Olympiad's organisers. It was done several days ago, on 8 June, with the following letter: