Open Letter of Georgian Chess Federation

Dear Friends,

As each and everyone of you, we also do our best in order to popularize chess throughout the country, to promote its development and make it one of the most prominent sport activities! Therefore, we have done a lot recently, such as:

1. Annual budget of Georgian Chess Federation reached an unprecedented figure of one million Euros;
2. Georgia will host the top class Women’s Grand Prix (June) and Youth European Championships (October);
3. Last year, with the governmental support of 250000 Euros Tbilisi International Chess Academy started operations;
4. Created five years state program for the development of Georgian Chess Federation, which is in examination process by Georgian Government;
5. In 2015, Georgia will host World Chess Olympiad under 16;
6. In 2016, Nona Gaprindashvili 75th anniversary will be proceeded by World Championship under 8-10-12;

According to all above mentioned, our federation has an ambition to seek farther opportunities. Therefore, Georgian Chess Federation and Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs of Georgia met with great enthusiasm the idea of holding World Cup 2017 and World Chess Olympiad 2018 in Georgia, proposed by FIDE President Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov during his visit in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2013. Thereafter, the tedious work started in the field of budgeting issues of the chess boards.

As a result of our commitment and energy Georgian Government allocated unprecedented amount of money (14 462 500 Euros) from the state budget for holding both above mentioned competitions.

We prepared a BID and presented it to the FIDE Secretariat with the accordance to all the necessary standards and procedures.

One can imagine how surprised we were when heard that FIDE Presidential Board, held on March 30 in Khanty-Mansiysk, extended the BID application deadline until April 15. However, drawing from the global chess interests to hold the best possible chess Olympiad 2018, we decided not to protest, but to adapt to the decision made by the FIDE officials.

We are certain that we’ve done everything to host the top class Olympiad and established equal living and playing conditions of European standards for each and every federation.

When we first heard about Mr. Danailov’s puzzle released on his tweeter page we hoped that he would reveal the plans and secrets of FIDE leaders because as he was the representative of our European continent at the FIDE Presidential board meeting.

“Silvio Danailov @SilvioDanailov Apr 7
Chess puzzle of the day: Why Makro&friends “FIDE PB” illegally extended the deadline for submitting bids for the 2018 Olympiad to April 15th?”

Unfortunately, we were disappointed with the answer. We have not received any support from Mr. Danailov, but we discovered that president of the ECU (whose primary responsibility is to support and protect the interests of the European National Federations) openly supports 12 million USD bid of South Africa against Georgia’s 20 million USD bid.

Silvio Danailov @SilvioDanailov Apr 7
So far there are two official bids, the one from South Africa being a clear favorite. But they are opposition and need to receive a lesson

Silvio Danailov @SilvioDanailov Apr 7
That’s why Makro&friends are preparing a new bid from Africa in order to provoke mess,grab some African votes& try to spoil SA bid #smart

Besides, it should be noted that Georgian Chess Federation has done its best to support Mr. Danailov’s candidature to the ECU Presidential elections 2010 and helped him to overcome the crisis connected with the Women’s European Championship in 2011 with holding one of the successful tournament in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Apart from all above mentioned we also found out that despite Georgian Arbiters’ high qualifications none of them represented in the Tromso Olympiad Arbiters list sent by Mr. Danailov to FIDE.

Nevertheless, due to the fact that Mr. Zurab Azmaiparashvili runs for ECU Presidential elections, we once again preferred not to respond to those unacceptable acts and tried to understand the political motivation of Mr. Danailov’s decision.

Finally, we saw the official answer on FIDE website to the Danailov’s Puzzle (http://www.fide.com/component/content/article/1-fide-news/7884-2018-olympiad.html) and found out that he attempted to mislead the world chess community by representing the situation as if everyone except himself was guilty. We would like to ask a rhetorical question to the ECU President: what is Mr. Danailov’s aim of abolishing the ECU regulations and supporting the South African bid.

Georgian Chess Federation is asking the honorable members of the ECU board:
1. To discuss and assess the facts of misleading Chess Society, abolishing our regulations and make appropriate and reasonable decision.
2. To support Georgian bid as the best one.

Sincerely,
GM Giorgi Giorgadze
President of GCF