Monday, May 16, 2016

Pestaño: Philippines in arrears with Fide

AS OF of April 14 last month the Philippines is one of those listed that has pending arrears with FIDE. This has become a habit in the past several years and there is a clear and present danger that we may not be able to play in the coming Olympiad. There are no current news that this has been paid. More on this later.
The 42nd Chess Olympiad, will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan on Sept. 1-14.There were two other interested cities—Albena in Bulgaria and Tallinn in Estonia but were not approved.
This was a controversial decision as many countries know that Armenia will not participate. The delegation of Armenia declared that participation of the Armenian chess players would be in that case impossible.
With the breakup of the Soviet Union, ethnic Armenians in Azerbaijan fought a brief conflict, backed by Armenia proper, that resulted in the de facto independence of Nagorno-Karabak (NKR) alongside a 1994 ceasefire agreement.
Some clashes occurred in the years following the 1994 ceasefire. Although no exact casualty figures exist, by 2009, as many as 3,000 people, mostly soldiers, had been killed. In 2008, the fighting became more intense and frequent. With 72 deaths recorded throughout the year, 2014 became the bloodiest since the war ended.
Since the country's independence, the Armenian men's chess team has won the European Team Championship(1999), the World Team Championship (2011) and the Chess Olympiad (2006, 2008, 2012). The women's team had its crowning victory at the 2003 European Championship. As of February 2016, Armenia ranks seventh in the world by the average rating of its top players. Levon Aronian, Armenia's best chess player, is currently world No. 4 in the FIDE rankings. Aronian was a World Champion candidate several times.
Since the 2011–12 school year, Armenia is the first country in the world to make chess mandatory in schools.
Garry Kasparov has compared the popularity of chess in Armenia with the popularity of football (soccer) in Brazil and Argentina.
Another problem before was Ukraine. It is also a major power in Chess. Fide suspended Ukraine last March 25 as it failed within the set deadline, to pay the full amount of the fee for the Women's World Championship match in Lviv has not been paid within the set deadline.
The Ukrainian debt is estimated at EUR 60,000. It can be recalled that the women’s championship between Mariya Muzychuk and Hou Yifan was played in Lyiv last March and normally Fide gets 20% of the prize money.
Andriy Sadovy, Mayor of Lyiv, announced that the problems between FIDE and the Ukrainian Chess Federation have been smoothed out last April 18 as the city’s pride and reputation was at stake.
As approved by the Presidential Board in Sochi, there will be a new procedure regarding Federations more than six months in arrears. The new policy, which comes into immediate effect, is that on December 31, the treasurer will list on the FIDE website those countries that are deemed to be over six months in arrears. Until the arrears have been paid off, players from these Federations cannot participate in any FIDE events that are under the aegis of a.) the World Championship & Olympiad Commission or Events Commission, b.) Continental competitions that provide qualifiers to any of the aforesaid competitions.
Wesley So recently won $35,000 for placing second in the US Championship and earning $15,000 in the Blitz match yhat followed. This week, he got another $10,000 in his losing match (2.5-1.5) with Ding Liren in Shanghai,China as part of the US-China Summit. Making good money

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