Here is the latest statement by USCF President Bill Goichberg:
“…after seven months we are running $42,341 behind budget. The membership trend has been poor in the past few months, and legal expenses for the rest of the year will be high, so I fear a loss for the year of at least $100,000.”
http://chessdiscussion.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=716
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
what is goichberg doing about it.
his tournament business seems to be doing quite well.
why the hell is uscf paying for the lawyers.
It’s a conflict of interest to be President of CCA and USCF at the same time. CCA should be paying his legal fees, not the USCF. Mr. Goichberg, stop wasting money from the members.
Just let that baby sink. Then we will start a new organization without all the sleazy imposters and conniving crooks.
Yeah, let it die. The USCF can’t be fixed as long as Goichberg’s hands are all over it.
Susan, if you started a new organization, I would join immediately. I will never join the USCF.
Anyone have the full statement?
Enter the United American Chess League featuring President Susan Polgar.
Its charter will be to promote American chess locally through scholastic chess and internationally through promotion of Televised/Netcasts of American GM’s versus the rest of the world. All American chess masters become instant life members. All USCF memberships are transferrable.
This would be an incredible thing!
Can the members file a class action suit against board members for wasting their money?
Why not start a new organisation called USCA – United States Chess Association?
We should have a contest on deigning a new Chess Federation with different areas of competition:
1. Name of organization
2. Best By-Laws
3. Best location
4. Best charter
5. Best logo
6. Best mascot
This would be fun!
“Anonymous said…
Can the members file a class action suit against board members for wasting their money?”
Absolutely! You may have your class action lawsuit. Call your local law firm!
Better yet, file a complaint with the IRS to revoke the USCF not for profit status.
Bill Goichberg is not the culprit. He has done a lot for chess. His CCA provides a source of income for a lot of professional players. It is a legitimate business and it is entitled to its profits. With respect to the “conflict of interest”: if it bothers you so much, don’t vote for him next time.
USCF is the best! Love from San Fran.
Doom! Doom!! All is Lost!!!
Goichberg posted his full statement on the USCF Issues forum.
“Anonymous said…
Bill Goichberg is not the culprit. He has done a lot for chess. His CCA provides a source of income for a lot of professional players. It is a legitimate business and it is entitled to its profits. With respect to the “conflict of interest”: if it bothers you so much, don’t vote for him next time.”
OK Goichi, we won’t vote for you any more you chess parasite.
Do us all a favor and quit breathing. Go tell Marcus Roberts I said that. Tell him I wish to poison all of the looney birds living on St. Kitts. And that I have installed microscopic internet cameras all over the St. Kitts island. Especially in his bathroom so that the world can view him while he shamefully abuses himself to pictures of young Vladimir Kramnik.
I don’t think Bill is repsonsible for the USCF foundering. The USCF failed to capitalize on the one HUGE opportunity that Bill has obviously demonstrated to be very successful: running high prize tournaments.
Imagine is you had to send those entrance fees payable to the USCF and tournament directors would be paid a % of the gate based on the other fixed costs for the event. What you would have is a “chess franchise” business model, and you know how successful franchises are.
The USCF screwed up by having tournament directors work for free and relying on promoters to guarantee their own prize funds. If all prize money was USCF backed, and all entrance fees COLLECTED NATIONALY by the USCF, then tourament directors paid out of the difference from the profit made, you would have a fantastic revenue model.
Playing sites/hotels could be dealt with as a national contract with a large organization with tremendous bargaining power. Imagine getting the call: “We can book your hotel’s convention rooms for the 3rd weekend in March from 2008 to 2018 if you allow us to pay a small % down to hold the reservation, then the difference after the tournaments run… oh, and by the way, we’d like to do the same for the 2nd weekend in May, the long 4th of July weekend….” etc.
Instead, the USCF wanted just a small rating fee per game played, and they delegated all of the risk (and profit) to the organizers who stake the events.
Gothic, how do you explain Goichberg using USCF to go after his political opponents like GM Evans, GM Polgar and others? He and his gang voted to waste more than $100K in the past year or two alone. Why should the members continue to suffer?
The USCF is incurring legal expenses to defend itself against the Sam Sloan lawsuit, which alleges among other things that the USCF leadership either knew or should have known that Paul Truong was publicly defaming a rival for USCF office while using an alias. Since this is a civil, not a criminal, trial, Paul and/or the USCF will have to establish their innocence not on the basis of reasonable doubt, but on the basis of the preponderance of evidence. Given the direction of the publicly available evidence so far, the defendants face a difficult road. Hence the large legal fees.
I’m not saying that the defendants will necessarily lose the case, as they have yet to present their evidence.
“The USCF is incurring legal expenses to defend itself against the Sam Sloan lawsuit, which alleges among other things that the USCF leadership either knew or should have known that Paul Truong was publicly defaming a rival for USCF office while using an alias.”
Chris Falter, what you leave out in your narrative is the fact that this would never have happened if Mottershead never overstepped his authority and went on a witch hunt on his own and publishing information that was forbidden to be advertised because of the NDA. Whether Slaon wins or loases is of no consequence. Mottershead and EB members who were controlling him will ot have much of a defense against a civil counter-suit over the NDA violation. The big loser here is the USCF and American Chess. Goichberg could have avoided this situation, but now is the primary cause of it by allowing Mottershead to run wild with his half-baked report. The other half of the information is found in the USENET records. About 15 years worth infact, by the way, there are several dozen other IP addresses that were FSS and other Fakes not linked to IPs in the Mottershead report. There will always be a reasonable doubt about who is FSS. FSS existed long before the elections and long before Susan and Paul were together. If you can’t finger all of the FSS posts, then you have some legal problems. What you and others have failed to do is collect the information on other Fake people in the alt.chess and alt.politics that have been there since the creation of those forums. You will be surprised that you will see the same 6 disfunctional people who are still harassing Susan today, to include Sloan, harassing other chatters and then impersonating them. You and the New York Times have been conned into believing that Sam Sloan is a victim. A real net expert will not only prove all of you wrong, but will be happy to enrich himself by uncovering the deception that has lasted for well over 15 years. After this, Mottershead will be wishing he never heard of computers or the Internet. To be continued.
Chris, nice to see your post. I know the evidence first hand. It was faxed to the USCF attorney. The evidence is absolutely rock solid. Perhaps one of these days after the case is dismissed, we can make it public for all members to see.
Best wishes to you and your family and Happy New Year!
Susan Polgar
The spending was authorized by Bill Goichberg and the majority board members. There’s no need for excuses. They made the decision. Now live with it.
Mr. L’s post was removed for the following reasons:
– He’s banned from posting on this blog. He was told this a number of times but he doesn’t comprehend basic English.
– The post contains inappropriate items.
Once again, please respect the rules of this blog.
The Blog Police
LOL!!!! That’s funny. I bet he still doesn’t get it.
Susan, on the USCF Issues Forum, a member of the USCF Finance Committee, Donna Alarie, commented on your blog posting. She raises some very serious issues with your statement. Could you please address them? Thanks.
USCF Member on the Recall Fence
I no longer visit the USCF political forums and I will never go back there. It is irresponsible for the board majority to spend approximately $25,000 (Internet insurance and deductibles) a year when this federation clearly cannot afford it. This is something which many other sites offer for free. This kind of fiscal irresponsibility is the reason why we are in this financial mess all the time. The members have the right to know how their elected officials spend their money.
I have no idea what Ms. Alarie wrote so I cannot comment on it. There is also no reason to debate anything publicly unless the board is willing to open up everything. All I can say is after all the facts come out, some board members will have a lot of answering to do one way or another. I can assure you that this matter will not end after the lawsuit is dismissed.
Even as of a week or two ago, I pleaded with the board to cooperate and work together for the best interest of the USCF to fix many existing problems. I knew the federation could potentially face financial difficulties. I spoke about this 4-5 months ago but the board majority ignored it completely.
Unfortunately, this is still far from over. The USCF may potentially have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and still lose big in court from multiple lawsuits by a number of parties. I know of at least 4-5 potential lawsuits from various members. The board majority is aware of this as it was told to them.
This is all I can comment about this issue until everything comes out.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
All USCF members should learn about the several ways Brian Mottershead behaved when he was granted security clearance and entrusted with privileged and private USCF communications and information.
Well,
Like it or not, the USCF is what it is, with it’s own unique needs, goals, vision, membership, and agenda. If you don’t like USCF politics, stay away from the USCF entirely. In this case becoming a USCF officer is like carrying an M-16 while petitioning for wholesale gun-bans.
As they said in the old west: “If you don’t like how they do business in this town, leave.”
“As they said in the old west: “If you don’t like how they do business in this town, leave.””
Well,
There is also another old saying from the wild west:
“THERE IS A NEW SHERRIFF IN TOWN!”
“Git out you varmits and take your stinking Goichberg with you!”
Susan, Donna Alarie’s post was actually on this thread for a while. It was deleted, but it was here. She actually agreed with you on several things and was in no way discourteous. You don’t have to go to the USCF forums to see it; just check the deleted posts here!
BTW, I do congratulate you on leaving Chris Falter’s post up.
I am looking forward to seeing the evidence for the defense and have no intention of forming a conclusion until I see it. I do believe that if Paul did in fact resign because he concluded it was in the best interests of the USCF it would in no way undermine his denial of the Mottershead report claims.
Any of the moderators of this blog is free to delete any post, especially from an anonymous individual, if it violates the rules of this blog. I did not read the post but a reason was given to me by one of the moderators and I fully agree with her. The ratio of deletion is about 1 post out of 150.
As for the evidence, I strongly believe that it will show that the conclusion of the report is wrong. I am quite confident of it.
Best wishes,
Susan Polgar
Goichberg and his gang must be so desperate to spam all over the place with their attacks and insults. Let them go back to their USCF Goichberg Forum and keep this blog clean. Now we understand what you have to deal with. Hang in there Susan. You will prevail.
Suggestion for the anon who likes to whine:
If you want Susan to take your post seriously, why not post with your name and USCF ID? Otherwise, you’re just a troll like Sloani, Laffernati, Roberti and others.
Somehow I doubt that you’ll have the courage and decency to post with your real name and USCF ID.
LOL LOL LOL
Let me see, Susan and Paul suggested complete transparency. Goichie and his group refused because they have too much to hide. On top of that they blew away all of uscf money. It doesn’t take a genius to know who has something to hide, does it? Goichie should resign for the sake of the uscf.
I agree with he’s laughing at you. Why is the anon so afraid to post his / her name and USCF ID number when he / she makes criticism?
Any bozo can claim that he / she is looking out for the best interest of the USCF. But as we all know some are dying to put this federation out of business.
So either post your name and ID or stop trolling.
If you believe in your complaints, post your name and USCF ID. Otherwise, you’re just another ranting lunatic like the others. This federation doesn’t need more lunatics. I full support Susan and Paul on their mission to fix the USCF.
Many of us here can smell the pattern of posting from USCF Member on the Recall Fence from miles away. Kudos to the moderator team of this blog.
I have no idea who’s right and who’s wrong. The only way to tell is to see all the records. Then we can gut out the one who caused all the damages to this federation.
Susan,
The USCF has been in trouble for years. Here is a link to their tax returns. This is from 2005 and it has only gotten worse. You and Paul tried to fix the problems and look what trouble your honest efforts has brought down on you. There are certain common threads on continuity on the board of 2005 and the board of 2008. Everyone can see from these records how they spend their money. almost 250k/year for Chess Life!
oops.. forgot to post the link.. time for me to go to bed!
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2006/135/624/2006-135624511-02c9e259-9O.pdf
Bill Goichberg is not the right man for the job. It is perfectly obvious when needs to be done, and Bill Goichberg refuses to do it. Instead he advocates eliminating Chess Life For Kids magazine and cutting the print version of Chess Life magazine.
It is also not true that we are losing $100,000. We are actually losing more like $300,000 SO FAR THIS YEAR. And this time he cannot blame Sam Sloan for all the troubles the USCF has, because he succeeded in having him defeated for re-election.
Bill Goichberg is not a businessman. He is a race horse handicapper and a chess tournament organizer. He should go back to doing what he knows best, and leave the board and allow people who know how to run a business run the USCF.
USCF’s OBITUARTY NOTICE – File Copy
You reduce all other assets to leave yourself in this endgame:-
Basically you sell your sole remaining asset, a building – take a mortgage
on a new one which costs much more, but spend the cash balance differential
on operations..
You also gayly forgive $100,000+ debt to a for-profit, then renew and extend
their contract as your sales agent – for a trading entity you previously
possessed which used to turn as much as $3,000,000 a year in gross revenue.
You pay $40,000 a year salary for an on-line editor whose output is less
than my own column, and whose readership is less than half of half that.
Additionally you pay $50,000 for a site-overhaul which doesn’t work, but
which seems to have no performance criteria at all, and which was unbid.
Unless I am incorrect about this, and the contract is secret, so secret we
are not allowed to know if it exists.
Then you invest in huge amounts of insurance for a forum which even
ex-President Redman said is entirely political – which is to say, its not
about chess for members and players, its about chess by and for politicians.
You then persist with the politi-forum until a law-suit emerges over a
scandal of identity where you have to obtain even more insurance and new
legal fees – thus fracturing your base of further decision making, the
board.
Cause of death was unclear. The last known photograph featured the expired
USCF board playing chess with one of those large sets. Rumor has it that the
organisation died trying to swallow a Queen [bits of dead Queen found in its
maw – but conspiracy theorists think the photo was staged.
I doubt that I will need to change this file-copy notice even after the
event occurs – but if I missed anything significant please let me know.
The Memorial Service will be held in the parking lot outside ChessHut on
date ________ , and an auction of contents proceding immediately afterwards.
Remaining friends ask that no flowers be sent, but instead send 10 bucks to
anyone you can think off who actually promotes chess.
Phil Innes
cc: FILE-COPY, USCF, death of/obit