Thursday 19 October 2017

As the world turns ...

While I was busy playing seniors chess in New Zealand, I missed the soap opera about the lives and loves of the FIDE management team. The 2017 Congress saw a public airing of a number of grievances, including "I hate it when you call me names" and "You don't bring me money, anymore".
FIDE Deputy President Makropoulos gave an opening speech highly critical of current President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, and the Executive Board  voted in favour of a motion asking Ilyumzhinov not to run for President again.
Now as the distance between me being on FIDE commissions and the present day gets longer (for reasons referenced here), I get less of the direct gossip and mainly receive my news second hand. So what I believe is going on may of course be wildly inaccurate. But here goes ...
Ignoring his own EB, Kirsan will run again. This is being pushed by the Russian government, who wish to show that US sanctions have no effect. While he has lost the support of the America's, Asia is still behind him (at the Continental management level).
The rest of the FIDE Management are either looking at finding a wealthy new Presidential candidate (to tip money into FIDE), or will run Makro as the candidate. Apparently Makro believes he is the only one who can run FIDE without a new source of cash.
A few 'outsider' candidates are thinking of making a run, although in this case the outsider's are actually FIDE insiders, just at a non management level (including one person from this part of the world). At this stage these candidates are not being taken seriously.
Finally, there is some serious sucking up between FIDE people and members of the losing side from the 2014 election. As was once memorably quoted in the movie Spinal Tap "Money talks, and bullshit walks"

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