One of the things I would like to fight hard against is corruption in chess. Chess is a major sport with 40-45 million people (according to CBS and other sources) who know how to play the game in the United States and 700 million around the world. More than 160 countries are members of FIDE.
And yet, the same small group of people keep controlling various national organizations as well as FIDE year after year. It would not be bad if they have a vision, ability, experience and passion to run these organizations. The problem is things are getting worse, not better.
The FIDE system of 1 nation 1 vote does not work because of corruption. It is not difficult to buy or exchange votes. Players and fans are screaming about changes but the same thing happens in every election. Practically nothing has changed.
The USCF system got a little better with OMOV (One man one vote) but there are still plenty of flaws. There are no sound provisions for removing officers who violate the code of conducts on a timely basis. There are still too much bureaucracy and inefficiency which hinder the welfare and growth of chess.
What about other countries? What system do you have and which is the best election system to ensure that the best most qualified people will have a chance to help chess? What is your take?
LOL, you removed my post. It was not ill intended nor it was offensive. I can only guess for the motives.
No post was removed.
I wish some of the other members of the USCF Board would post here under their own names. A lot of questions could be asked and issues addressed.
Susan, what system would you propose?
Vote on basis of Fide rated players? On population?
The only democratic system for FIDE is one nation one vote.
For smaller groups you can have direct democracy, by people voting themselves, but not for the world federation.
There are many many people playing chess, say in India, that are not register as in the US. How can they make them register ? If they pay it may be the case that poorer people cannot/are not willing to aford it.
Also, there is another point of having one vote for small countries as well. Can you imagine UN votes based on population? India and China if they agreed they could do whatever they wanted…
You need to respect smaller nations, as well as less developed in chess.
If for example we focus on countries with many fide rated players and ignore, say African countries, then there will never be a change that would bring development to these countries.
Which even with the current system is not fluricing.
Yes maybe you can buy a vote of a small federation with few chessboards and clocks, but some people running for FIDE have in their mind top level GM chess only, and at least with this system they would have to care or at least bribe them…
“Chess is a major sport with 40-45 million people (according to CBS and other sources) who know how to play the game in the United States and 700 million around the world.”
This ignoratio elenchi bothers me. The number of people who know how to play a board game does not determine its status as a “major sport,” though it may have some bearing upon its potential audience.
Susan,
The FIDE system of 1 nation 1 vote does not work because of corruption. It is not difficult to buy or exchange votes.
The 1 nation 1 vote could be changed to vote-number based on the population of the country, but I guess that would be difficult, because of the sheer number of FIDE members (although I don’t know).
The corruption does not always negate the rightness of the basic voting system. That is the one, known fault of democracy itself (even in ancient Greece vote-selling was known). Yet, there is no better system emerged up to date. The only way to correct the problem you mention is to catch the cheaters red handed. Obviously not easy.
What about other countries? What system do you have and which is the best election system to ensure that the best most qualified people will have a chance to help chess? What is your take?
This is my old gripe about elections in general: people vote who have no clue about what they voting for and why. But again, that is democracy.
If I would be the “benevolent king”, I would establish a voting system, where people have to take a standard test which would indicate whether they know what they are voting about. It could be a pass-fail type test, or it could be a grading test which determines that how many voting point the person should have.
Whenever I presented anywhere, I was told that this is anti-democratic.
Gabor
>>The FIDE system of 1 nation 1 vote does not work because of corruption. It is not difficult to buy or exchange votes.
>>
The problem is that it may be too late to change it. It’s certainly a bad thing that countries that have no titled players at all have the same clout as Russia or Germany, but what can be done?
When FIDE was formed, it was a European organization, whose members were largely comparable in size, so one country one vote wasn’t much of an issue. Before the influx of new nations in the 70’s and 80’s was the time to change the system. Trying to change it now is like asking politicians to vote themselves less power, which never happens.
Is there a way to fix this, short of withdrawing from FIDE and forming a new organization?
Here’s an idea in answer to the above post. In the US the two political parties allocate delegates to their conventions based upon party strength in each state. They developed algorithims to take into account the various factors that determine strength.
We could implement the same kind of principle for the FIDE. Chess strength could based upon number of grandmasters, and IM’s, National Federation members, and rated games played in the country.
This way each country would have a vote but those countries who have a bigger presence in chess would have the bigger vote.
One suggestion I would make for USCF is Internet balloting, using a member’s ID number and PIN for validation. That would fix the problem we had last year when many members never received their ballots.
Jack,
No, “we” can’t implement the same for FIDE. It is not yours, mine or ours to change.
Of course, the Federations are not going to vote to a) give all the power to the USA, or b) based on population give all the power to India and China.
Better to work within FIDE and not waste time on empty dreams to change the voting system. It is not even like the UN – in FIDE’s case, US money does not matter.
In terms of FIDE we should go to a system where countries with a larger population of FIDE rated players receives more votes. This is fair – why should the US have an equal voice in FIDE when they do little for FIDE? Less than 10% of the USCF population is FIDE rated where in countries such as France or England the number is over the 50% mark.
There are very few FIDE rated events in the US, no major FIDE events held on American soil, and no plans for them.
So why should the US have an equal say in FIDE when they participate very little?
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If we turn our attention to the USCF and the voting problems here then we have a different can of worms.
We have processes for elections but the USCF member community does not exercise their right to vote. What % of the USCF population actually voted?
We also have a process for placing delegates from the various states but do the best delegates get elected? In general no – the ones that would be best have other things to do with their time than play around with stupid political games.
We also have very poorly written by-laws for the USCF which does not allow for getting rid of pieces of garbage like Sam Sloan. But to change the by-laws God must come down from Heaven and allow for it.
The USCF EB has no courage to stand up and deal with problems and only wants to bury things until the next meeting or the next set of EB members.
1. Need EB members with backbones.
2. Need to re-do the by-laws
3. Need to remove Sam Sloan
4. Start fixing USCF.
Chess Grand Prix Tourneys
each country manages it’s own grand prix yearly ..eg..like tennis, golf,etc..
the best in the world player is the No1 seed …..you collect points for games won only.. not for draws ..at the end of the year or last grand prix …the player with the most points is the world champion … you set an entry level.eg..open..under 2200…under…2000..under 1500…better still dump the rating system and seed the players 1. 2. 3. etc…forget the GM titles a lot of them are rigged anyway
big time sponsors ,TV networks,etc..would fight to host this kind of chess competition…players would be financially supported beyond their dreams
the FIDE would not be needed…you have the same set of rules for each grand prix and make them tough but fair
you have the same playing sytem within each country
In germany we use a system based on membership. the members vote only in the clubs direct. For regional and state bodies , each club gets one vote per 20 (paying) members independent if adults or juniors. For federal elections the states get votes dependent on membership.
For FIDE I think a good system would be the first 15 countries get 3 votes (based on players with rating above 2200), the next 15 countries get 2 votes, the rest gets one vote. The exact numbers can be discussed, but all countries have a vote, but the important countries, which represent strong players and most activities have more influence w/o overruling the majority of nations.
>>For FIDE I think a good system would be the first 15 countries get 3 votes (based on players with rating above 2200), the next 15 countries get 2 votes, the rest gets one vote. The exact numbers can be discussed, but all countries have a vote, but the important countries, which represent strong players and most activities have more influence w/o overruling the majority of nations. >>
It’s a good idea, but how can this or any other good idea be implemented without the support of delegates who have no titled players in their country, yet still have the same voting power as Germany, but without being answerable to anyone? Why would someone like that vote to limit his power just because it was unfair?
It seems like it’s too late to reform FIDE, and the only chance is to withdraw and form a new organization that has a fair voting system from the get go.
>>
Vote on basis of Fide rated players? On population?
The only democratic system for FIDE is one nation one vote.
>>
That’s an ANTI-Democratic system. The point of Democracy is to ensure that ordinary citizens are equal, not to make all politicians equal.
The One member One Vote system makes all politicians equal but treats the actual players very unequally. A player from a large country might have 1/10,000th of a vote while a player from a very small country might have as much as a full vote. Nothing democratic about that.
The US Government has this same situation in the Senate, but at least has the House of Representatives to counter-balance it. FIDE has no counter-balance, and so suffers from a tyranny of the minority. And so far nobody has shown any realistic way of getting a change through, apart from withdrawing from FIDE.
Anonymous said…
Chess Grand Prix Tourneys
I like that idea it would mean that the world champion could be the No 6 seed if not playing well. Also the No 15 seed could win a major Grand Prix
Susan,
I think the problem is the fact that separate issues are being confused. The problem of corruption will always be there no matter what the system. That is a ‘people’ problem. Those who are drawn to power are not always those who are best suited to it.
There are corrupt world leaders and there are good ones. There are corrupt politicians and there are good ones. There are corrupt cops and there are good ones. There are people who abuse what power (or what little power) they have all the way down to the person who answers phones and feels their ‘gatekeep’ responsibilty entitles and empowers them for something greater.
Now the problem of actual system of governance is not so hard to solve if there is a will. I could draft appropriate model laws in short order and I am sure many other chessplayers could as well.
If there is a clear need there is no problem getting people to step forward and help effect change. The real question is “can this change be effected?”
If the system is truly corrupt expecience dictates that it will defend itself vigorously against change and change will be impossible. If the system isn’t that bad I am sure inertia will still work against change but it may be possible.
Sorry for all the generalities but its not easy to get specific about a governance system that I have not studied in detal (nor felt a need to until your call to action).
As someone else posted ” What is all this going to mean for an average player here in the middle of Nebraska?” I suspect the answer to their question is ‘not much’. Does it mean something to chess in general? I think so
So Chess could have a real Worlds Best player like Roger Fedarer in tennis out there showing the world how good a chess player he/she is
The USCF can be fixed.
FIDE cannot be fixed. One country one vote is absurd.
FIDE can be replaced only IF several national orgs, like USCF, each find a formula to retain major commercial sponsors, and then band together to form a new international org (bypassing FIDE).
Gene_M
I do not see anything wrong with starting a new fide world type organization.
Many years ago fide was a new idea. so people did the best they could to guess how to create a new organization. Now the organization has been around for a while and we can see the good points and the bad points. What needs to be done is make a proposal to include the good points and fix the bad points.
Unfortunately most often the new organization rises out of the ashes of the DEAD old organization. It is much easier to fix when the old one is gone.
Although fide is a mess, I am not sure it is ready to die. Kirsan keeps putting money into it. but if the money ends then there is a better chance that it will die.
It seems obvious that the governance of fide and the vote situation will be one of the first things that will be fixed with a new organization.
Basically fide will die when no one wants to bother with it. When it is no longer profitable to run the organization. It can also end when the big chess countries get smart and realize they do not need the tiny countries and they simply just go off and form a new one. the old one with no chess players left will not last long.
Actually fide came close to ending after Kasparov left. Then Kasparov messed up and gave fide new life.
Why is chess in the condition it is in? Because most club players are completely unaware of the mess.
They show up to a tournament, play a game, and hope to see their new rating next month. If all that goes well, they feel all is fine.
In my local chess club no one is aware there are problems. At least not at their level. The “rank and file” has no idea how “rank” things have gotten. The USCF certainly does not bring attention to the problems in their publications (online and print) and the few who venture into the forums typically refuse to believe that the behavior goes to the top. They simply get offended and leave.
People, wake up!
FIDE will never die because it is the global governing body for chess, recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The 1 nation – 1 vote is the system used by all World Sport Federations of the IOC. I’m surprised that Susan Polgar ignores this…
Susan,
Where is your principle of democracy? You should understand that the concept of “one person, one vote” or “one nation, one vote” is essential in any democracy. Thanks!
SS Quah