Venezuela has been dismissed from ICCF

  

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Juri Eintalu    (2021-09-09)
Venezuela has been dismissed from ICCF

ICCF announced:

"Venezuela was dismissed from the ICCF (2021-028)."

The number is the number of the proposal accepted by Congress.

In the proposal, it was said that the Venezuelan organizer of several correspondence chess tournaments had vanished with the prize money:

"presumably absconded with the promised prize money".
(https://www.iccf.com/Proposal.aspx?id=1341 )

I know that Venezuela organized several correspondence chess tournaments "in support of Venezuela". There are also rumours that because of the US sanctions, Cuba and Venezuela have difficulties with international money transfers.


Garvin Gray    (2021-09-09 18:54:19)
VENEZUELA HAS BEEN DISMISSED FROM ICCF

A lot of statements there. No actual questions? I can not really answer statements :)


Juri Eintalu    (2021-09-09 19:32:44)
VENEZUELA HAS BEEN DISMISSED FROM ICCF

Of course, there are a lot of questions.

- Whether Venezuela politicized sport when organizing the correspondence chess tournament "in support of Venezuela"?

- Whether the International Correspondence Chess Federation (ICCF) has provided any evidence that the Venezuelan chess organizer has escaped with the prize money?

- Whether the country can be punished solely because of the behaviour of one sports official?

- Whether the problem was actually about the economic sanctions on Venezuela, hindering international money transfers?

- Whether the dismissal of Venezuela from ICCF has hidden political motives?

Thus, there are many questions for chess historians.


Thibault de Vassal    (2021-09-09 22:58:52)
VENEZUELA HAS BEEN DISMISSED FROM ICCF

Indeed... Thanks Juri for pointing this out (and Garvin for enlightening us).


Garvin Gray    (2021-09-11 11:56:08)
VENEZUELA HAS BEEN DISMISSED FROM ICCF

Juri - Quite a few of your questions contain quite a lot of accusations, or at least a tone of accusations, or that those who took actions in dismissing Venezuela has some kind of hidden motives.


The decision to dismiss Venezuela was made by the National Delegates of each Federation of ICCF, after considering all the evidence before them.

This included unpaid prize money, where entry fees were charged, over at least two years, unpaid affiliated fees to the ICCF (same time period) and the National Delegate of Venezuela was offered many opportunities to pay back the money.

The National Delegate ran the tournaments, handled the money through paypal and in the end was in debt to the ICCF and the players of their tournament to the tune of roughly 7 to 10 thousand euros.

So, yes, ICCF has provided plenty of evidence that the 'organiser' took off with the entry fees of the players and did not pay out the advertised prize monies.

Multiple attempts were made by the ICCF Executive Board to reach a satisfactory compromise with the National Delegate, but in the end the National Delegate cut off all communications and went completely silent to everyone.

All Federations pay an affiliation fee to be part of ICCF. This amount is levied in part based on the number of members a Federation has, and also that countries economic position (GDP).

After reading all this, what other option was there for the other National Delegates to vote for?

In another proposal, which you have not referenced, the ICCF Executive board has promised that the prize money that was not paid out by the Venezuelan National Delegate would be covered by the ICCF, which will cost roughly 10,000 euro and will be paid out to the players.

So, to answer your questions after all this information:

1) No. This issue and your question are not related at all. It is not even certain if the Venezuelan National Delegate lived in Venezuela.

2) Yes, plenty of evidence was provided. Players had also reported that they had not received their prize money. I can report this as fact as I got burnt as a player in one of their events. So I know first hand that this occurred.

3) This has nothing to do with 'sports'.

This is a common misunderstanding about how ICCF works. ICCF is an association of Federations ie ICCF only recognises Federations. Therefore, officially ICCF can only take action formally against Federations and only works with the National Delegate from that Federation.

How the Federation conducts their business 'behind the scenes' is up to them and is none of the business of ICCF. It would be highly improper for ICCF to have a say in how any individual Federation ran their Federation.

What now occurs is that the remaining Venezuelan players are treated as isolated players. They can not represent Venezuela in team events, by they are free to play in any individual events.

Some of these players might be picked up by other Federations, if another Federation wants them.

4) Money transfers - As I already alluded to, it is not clear if the Venezuelan ND was even in Venezuela, but anyways, he had no trouble receive the entry fees, so money transfers by paypal were no issue.

If there was an issue, then they should not have run prize money tournaments

5) No political motives - This was a straight up case of whether the Venezuelan ND had taken off with the entry fees of the players and failed to pay out the prize money from many tournaments, as well as the Federation failing to pay their affiliation fees, as well as being in debt for other fees as well.

These are basic responsibilities for all Federations. Even if you want to lay all the blame of the Venezuelan ND, a case can be made as to ask what happened to any oversight from anyone else?

Or was the Venezuelan ND just a rogue operator?

This experience has left a sour taste in everyone's mouth and remedy steps have been taken to try and avoid this occurring again.

See other proposals.

Garvin Gray
Australia ICCF National Delegate


Juri Eintalu    (2021-09-11 14:07:41)
VENEZUELA HAS BEEN DISMISSED FROM ICCF

"Juri - Quite a few of your questions contain quite a lot of accusations..." (Garvin Gray)

I just shared information about the decision of the ICCF. Garvin Gray demanded twice that I should ask some questions. Finally, I formulated some questions that can come to mind for the ordinary reader. Now, Garvin Gray declares that I have made a lot of accusations, but the questions are not accusations. Therefore, I do not participate in this conversation anymore.