Kasparov vs Ilyumzhinov: the FIDE Presidency battle begins

[Chris Rice]

FIDE's Verification Committee who are responsible for commenting on the 2013 FIDE accounts are not very happy about the debts that Agon accumulated which adds up to over a million Euros, asking how FIDE could have exposed itself to such a huge unsecured debt. In addition they have also mentioned the current President doubling his travel budget in the last 12 months to 280,000 Euros while being appearing to be personally in debt with his running account to FIDE for some 68,000 Euros.

See Annex 6 on the link if you need any further details http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... nexes.html

[Roger de Coverly]

The Ethics Committee Report at
http://www.fide.com/images/stories/NEWS ... nex_31.pdf
may throw some new light on the Agon mystery.

It should be recalled that it was established that AP held all (both) shares of Agon and that was confirmed in his answers whenever the question is asked. What isn't asked, but should have been, was the subtly different question as to who financed Agon. The Ethics Commission appear to have uncovered something

This agreement would have previewed that Mr Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had to finance Agon up to 2 million US dollars for the first two years; in return Mr Kirsan Ilyumzhinov would have acquired the control of the Agon company. In the following years Mr Kirsan Ilyumzhinov’s credit would have been repaid and he would have taken advantage of all next profits of the company by way of dividends.

The current status of Agon's financing is unknown. If the FIDE President does have a financial interest in it, that's presumably structured as a loan rather than disclosable share ownership.

Whilst it might be to the advantage of FIDE to have a President willing to lend money to support its prestige events, there is a very thin line dividing that from attempting to purchase electoral support.

Would the GA would have been prepared to authorise FIDE's side of the deal, had they known the President was financing Agon?

[JustinHorton]

See Annex 6 on the link if you need any further details http://www.fide.com/component/content/a ... nexes.html

Or link directly here. What's Chess Lane all about?

This gave me a laugh:

"Among invoices presented to and paid by FIDE which we examined were some lacking in the kind of detail which would enable us properly to review and verify payment." Who was in charge of this, CJ de Mooi?

[JustinHorton]

The current status of Agon's financing is unknown. If the FIDE President does have a financial interest in it, that's presumably structured as a loan rather than disclosable share ownership.

Mr Andrew Paulson is a member of this forum and has often expressed a willingness to answer questions from its members. I don't suppose he fancies having a pop at this one?

Whilst it might be to the advantage of FIDE to have a President willing to lend money to support its prestige events, there is a very thin line dividing that from attempting to purchase electoral support

You think this, and I think this, but do either of us think for a moment that the chess world would be bothered about such a thing so long as somebody was Putting Money Into Chess?

(As for "attempting to purchase electoral support", there's been thinner lines than that in this campaign.)

[Roger de Coverly]

What's Chess Lane all about?

There's a long history of shadowy companies with a Kirsan connection being given the rights to run FIDE connected events.

Chess Lane appears to have been the Agon of 2008-2010.

From http://monroi.com/chess-blog/chess-expe ... pping.html

FIDE Grand-Prix is a series of six invitational chess tournaments, held over two years, managed by Global Chess. Global Chess is co-owned by FIDE’s President Kirsan Ilymzhinov and Chess Lane LA company of David Kaplan, a Russian-Israeli businessman.

That doesn't sound any different from the Agon structure as alleged. No-one made much of a fuss about this at the time, but then David Kaplan didn't try to run for an elected office.

[Chris Rice]

From the Chess Vibes archives I dug out ....

Chess Network Company

"CNC stands for Chess Network Company, the joint venture created by FIDE and Chess Lane in 2009 as exclusive commercial partner. Chess Lane is a business run by the brothers Ziyavudine and Mohammed Magomedov from Dagestan, and represented by David Kaplan of Israel. Kaplan was appointed CEO of Development by FIDE in November 2007, and announced a revolution in the chess world in May 2010. However, thus far the most revolutionary aspect has been the absence of any substantial news about Chess Lane or CNC since then..."


http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=reports/fi ... -tretyakov

[JustinHorton]

"Efforts by the Treasurer to recoup the remainder have been consistently rebuffed."

So these people were in the office, admitted they owed ninety grand, and then made like Trappists while running up another hundred and seventy big ones?

We need to know more about this, if only because it's the sort of story where the details are usually fun to read.

[Roger de Coverly]

From the Kasparov site

http://kasparov2014.com/2014/07/01/the- ... e-of-fide/

They give brief biographies of the candidates. Of Ignatius Leong, they write

There are few in the chess world and no one in Asian chess who don’t know and admire Ignatius and his amazing worth ethic

You couldn't possibly comment.

[NickFaulks]

From the Kasparov site

http://kasparov2014.com/2014/07/01/the- ... e-of-fide/

They give brief biographies of the candidates. Of Ignatius Leong, they write

There are few in the chess world and no one in Asian chess who don’t know and admire Ignatius and his amazing worth ethic

which makes sense of

Ignatius had plans to continue these efforts on a global scale when he abandoned his own reform candidacy for FIDE president in 2002

[Chris Rice]

As Nigel Short has posted in the Forum-which-must not-be-named Kasparov reckons he's 18-14 ahead in Africa. He has verified this by producing letters of endorsement from those countries. Unfortunately those letters have been written by 18 soon to be ex-President's of their chess federations (which will shortly be downgraded by FIDE to associations so ruled ineligible anyway). Pity.

http://kasparov2014.com/2014/07/01/end- ... -kasparov/

[David Sedgwick]

A piece by about Asia by Ignatius Leong at http://www.fidexfiles.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... en-do.html mentions London based organiser Sainbayar Tserendorj.

[NickFaulks]

A piece by about Asia by Ignatius Leong at http://www.fidexfiles.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... en-do.html mentions London based organiser Sainbayar Tserendorj.

Leong is certainly burning his boats. Kirsan may be very forgiving of this sort of thing, but I'm not so sure that the Sheikh is.

[Mick Norris]

Mark Crowther has been having another fruitless exchange on Twitter with the Kirsan apologists

Interesting link he has posted
https://bivol.bg/petrol-cvetan-vassilev ... nt&print=1

[Paolo Casaschi]

Mark Crowther has been having another fruitless exchange on Twitter with the Kirsan apologists

Interesting link he has posted
https://bivol.bg/petrol-cvetan-vassilev ... nt&print=1

I saw the link in the middle of a discussion about KI on twitter where it was supposed to provide a negative outlook on KI. Reading the article though, it does not really seem to portray KI in a negative way.

[Mick Norris]

Mark says you need to read articles in Russian, and was quoting that as 1 in English - I don't think those who support Kirsan would be convinced by anything, though