Executive Board Dresden

Dear chessfriends,

From August 17th until August 24th the 75th FIDE Congress took place in Dresden. It was very well and professionally organised by the German Chess Federation.

I visited this event as Zonal President. Unfortunately I could not stay the whole period. I had to leave the 21st, because of obligations concerning my work. I asked Mr. Wim Arns (delegate of the Netherlands) to represent me in my absence, which he was so kind to do.

I give you herewith an update of the most important issues during the congress.

Since next year is an election for FIDE the first steps are taken. Anatoly Karpov gave an interview and Bessel Kok visited the congress for a few days. We shall see what this year will bring us.

In the Titles and Rating Commission a letter of several top players was discussed. These players are concerned that the title of IGM is devaluating more and more. They were also worried about tournaments in which results are fixed. Measures will be taking to control the quality of tournaments.

There is no sponsor found up to now for the World Cup which should take place in December of this year. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is looking in the Russian region and in Asia. He hopes to have more news next month.

After the World Championship in Argentina, FIDE hopes to organise a match between the winner of this event and Kramnik. It wants to reunite the chess world in this way.

The Ethics Commission dealt with several cases: complaints of players of Yemen about their president, a tournament in Hungary in which many irregularities took place and complaints about the World Youth Championship in Belfort. The last two issues will be examined by the Ethics Commission. The Executive Board already took sanctions against the French organiser, which lead to protests of the French Federation.

The financial position of FIDE was improved in 2004. This was mainly due to a payment of SFR 600.000 of money from the World Championship of 2003. In 2006 the three Board members who run the office in Athens will be replaced by a new General Director. A budget of SFR 100.000 is already reserved for the salary of this person.

A proposal was accepted that in Olympiads the organisers could ask $ 25 a day for each player. This shall not take place in Turin or in Dresden, but perhaps in 2010. I talked this over beforehand with Mr. Wim Arns and we decided to vote no (only Mr. Antunac did the same). Federations have to make more and more costs to send teams to championships and we should not make this even more expensive.

Candidates for the Olympiad in 2010 are till now: Gothenburg, Montenegro and Poznan. A final decision will be taken in Turin.

The Medical Commission will advice WADA to take beta blockers out of the list for chess players.

Nigel Short was elected general secretary of the Commonwealth in FIDE. The British Chess Federation will change its name in English Chess Federation.

I hope to have given you some idea of the issues discussed in Dresden.

Kind regards,

Herman Hamers,
President of Zone 1.1