English Chess Forum

My memory tells me that players representing England in Olympiads and European championships had been paid fees from the late 1970s onwards. This was with the help of the firm Duncan Lawrie, who sponsored the team for many years.

I was therefore surprised to read in one of the election addresses that :-

My most important contribution was getting the ECF to pay minimum players fees out of their own budget. This was radical at the time & stopped the situation that happened with selection for European Champion ship in Plovdiv (Sept2003) where players were written to & asked if they would consider playing for free.

By my recollection, the 2003 situation was a short-lived experiment. It proved you could sent a team under those circumstances, but such a team would do no better than a mid-table position. Obviously the BCF was presented with a new situation when it lost long standing sponsorship, but I wouldn't have thought the payment of fees in the years 1980 to 2002 was exclusively tied to the existence of sponsorship.

Here's the team from 2001 in the Europeans (finished 4th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2001e/2001eng.html
The team from the 2002 Olympiad (finished 7th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2002/2002eng.html
and the 2003 European team (finished 17th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2003e/2003eng.htm

That was the start of a run of results objectively poor if measured by standards previously achieved.

So the 2004 Olympiad (finished 30th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2004/2004eng.html
2005 Euro (finished 13th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2005e/2005eng.html
2006 Olympiad (finished 19th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2006/2006eng.html
2007 Euro (finished 16th)
http://www.olimpbase.org/2007e/2007eng.html

Is there a point to your post?

Are you hoping to discover the fees paid to professional players?

John Upham wrote:Is there a point to your post?

Are you hoping to discover the fees paid to professional players?

I'm querying an assertion made by one of the election candidates as it doesn't match with my recollection of events.