1. To Media
2. FIDE
3. National Federations
4. Who concerns
Date: 22.06.2015
Announcement
Due to many press releases and articles in mass media, which involve and tarnish European Chess Union name in tournaments, transactions and contracts, European Chess Union by Board decision makes the following press statement:
The official ECU tournament calendar is published each year by the ECU Secretariat and includes European Championships organized annually according the ECU Statutes and regulations. Paragraphs B.1.2 and B.1.3 of the ECU Tournament Rules provide the following:
“All ECU (European) Chess Federations shall have the right to participate in the European Individual and Team Competitions, irrespective of gender or age”.
“All players participating in the European Individual and Team Championships must be entitled by birth, citizenship or naturalization to represent their Federation”.
It is well known to All European Chess Federations’ and players that in European Championships entitled to participate are players belonging to the European Federations or to clubs belonging to European federations (for European Club Cup only). The invitations for European official Championships are approved, then published and sent to the European Federations only by the ECU Secretariat according to the ECU Tournament Regulations.
Regarding the ECU tournament Calendar 2014, this was circulated to the National federations by the CL1/2014 14.03.2014 (http://www.europechess.org/press-info/circularr-letters/2014-2/) and the same calendar was published and remained till the end of the year on the ECU site (older and new version). The older version of ECU site had also a draft calendar for any other tournament that any federation can upload the information for promotion of the tournaments. European Chess Union supports all chess tournaments in Europe but its official calendar is the one published annually.
There are several press references about, transactions, unknown to ECU, between Bulgarian Chess Federation and the European Chess Union.
ECU clarifies the following:
1. European Chess Union is not a commercial company and does not make contracts for renting or selling chess boards, pieces or clocks or software for jamming mobiles. The invoices shown in the press and concern such commercial actions neither are booked in the ECU files nor the money transactions (referring to dates on 2011 and 2012) reached at any time the only ECU Bank account in Switzerland.
2. European Chess Union had no money transaction with the Bulgarian Chess Federation or any other organisation or any individual related to the chess tournaments organized in Albena (01-09 June 2014) and Golden Sands 2014 (10-18 June 2014)”.
3. European Chess Union fees paid annually by the National federations are defined by the general tournament regulations (http://www.europechess.org/regulations/tournamentregulations/) and regard participants’ entry fees, deposits fees, bid fees, and license fees. These amounts are included in the annual budget and the annual closing and auditing and are available to all National federation members during the annual General Assembly.
4. European Chess Union will co-operate with any official authority and will provide additional information to any official investigation. European Chess Union has informed, since May 8th, the Bulgarian Chess Federation for reported unusual transactions asking for clarifications and cross checking between both organizations.
5. European Chess Union is today registered in the European Union transparency server and the basic information for the organization is available to the public. http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/displaylobbyist.do?id=771087217632-01. The total final income for year 2014 was 228.594 euros in the same level with years 2011, 2012, and 2013.
6. European Chess Union reserves its right to move against any organization or individual who defame and damage the European Chess Union involving it in unknown transactions, contracts and any action that is not made by ECU.
We ask all media, which published such information referring to the European Chess Union, to publish the present statement.
EUROPEAN CHESS UNION
Rainweidstrasse 2, CH-6333 Hünenberg See, Switzerland
Email: ecuoffice2014@gmail.com Contacts: http://www.europechess.org/office/
www.europechess.org
ECU CALENDAR 2014
European Team Championship –
European Individual Championship 02.03-15.03. Yerevan/Armenia
European Individual Women’s Championship 05.07-18.07. Plovdiv/Bulgaria
European Youth Championship U8 – U18 18.10-29.10. Batumi/Georgia
European Club Cup 13.09-21.09. Bilbao/Spain
European Club Cup for Women 13.09-21.09. Bilbao/Spain
European Senior Championship 08-18.03. Oporto, Portugal
European Senior Team Championship 01-10.04. Sibenik/Croatia
European Youth Team Championship 14-22.07. Iasi/Romania
European Rapid Chess Championship 19.12-21.12. Wroclaw/Poland
European Blitz Chess Championship 19.12-21.12. Wroclaw/Poland
European Individual and Team Championships for Cadets and Juniors (Rapid and Blitz) Tallinn/Estonia
European Amateur Championship 23.08-31.08. Paleros/Greece
EU Youth Championship 26.08-04.09. Malenovice/Czech Republic
European School Championships 16.06-27.06. Kavala/Greece