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Notes to 18/19, 19/20 and 20/21 ECF International Budget
The following represents what I regard as the minimum required to maintain, as well as try and improve England’s status in competition and to keep the flow of rated, titled and professional players into the future. It should be read in conjunction with the KPI’s for International Directorate document.
Olympiad/European Team Championships
There is one important representative tournament per year. The Olympiad and European Championships alternate. The European has fewer rounds and therefore sometimes requires a lower budget. The definition of Europe extends to Georgia nowadays so travel costs can be high. The main costs are; player fees, travel and accommodation. To save money I have acted as captain at some events, but at Baku I was replaced by John Nunn – a considerable upgrade – and the team benefitted.
I was fortunate find a commercial sponsor for Baku 2016 and Crete 2017 and this year I have managed to do a whip round and my thanks to the donors who ensured we could be competitive. However I can’t do this every year, there has to be a budget that enables us to compete.
We were invited to the prestigious World Team Championships in 2017 but I had to decline as we had no budget. In 2019 we were invited again as we qualified and I secured a sponsor that enabled us to compete with success and stay within budget for 18/19. We’ve managed to control costs to a degree in 2018/9 by reducing player fees and using budget airlines and taking two planes not one.
Senior Chess
This should be a growth area for the ECF and an area where we can be world beaters. I am budgeting only for part of the costs of supporting our National Team to one representative event per year and assisting one GM only to attend one or two representative events per year like the World Senior and European Senior. My thanks to the Manager of Senior Chess Stewart Reuben for his efforts and success in finding sponsorship for the Senior Team.
Elite Development Training
There are very few top-flight trainers who can work with 2650+ players and Artur Yusupov is the most highly regarded. This year we organised sessions with Artur ( privately funded ) for Gawain Jones and for David Howell and it helped them both. I would like to support Luke McShane as well and if possible send some of our GM aspirants. I also want to support Jovanka as our only full time female chess pro.
One Training Match / Session pre-Olympiad/European
The top teams all have a training camp to prepare for the representative events. I’d like to fund Open and Women’s teams gathering for 2 days a year as well as organise at least one training match for both. However, this would take the spend over budget and will have to be supported from sponsorship.
International tournaments support WCC cycle
I have limited my support to helping with expenses only in tournaments that are part of the World Championship cycle. In 2018 I supported Gawain Jones and Luke McShane and they qualified for the FIDE World Cup from the European Individual.
Analytical Support
Boris Avrukh is one of the world’s leading theoreticians and his help was invaluable at Baku and the European Individual. The budget envisages only using Boris at representative team events and the World Cup. There is no budget for online cloud analysis.
Support for norm seekers
We really need to support our younger players trying to get IM and GM norms. Help is particularly needed for the U-25s and those at university to enable them to participate at selected events via small grants towards travel costs. I have allowed only a small amount for this. Any more will have to be covered by sponsorship or donations or assistance from the CT or JRYT.
International norm tournaments, support to tournament organisers
There is a desperate shortage of FIDE rated events and particularly norm tournaments in the UK. People like Adam Raoof and Tim Wall as well as the 4NCL, chess clubs and counties should be encouraged to stage IM norm and GM Norm Opens or closed tournaments. I’ve allocated small amounts in the budget. In an ideal world, I’d budget up to £20K for this to get more norm tournaments off the ground. In some cases the funds can be designated as underwriting possible losses instead of always being in the form of a grant.
The overall budget envisages support from the Chess Trust for some of the items above to make up for the shortfall in funds budgeted from the ECF.
— Malcolm Pein 29/3/2019