FIDE is giving up school chess and its own brand
The FIDE General Assembly was a blast of important decisions and historic votes. While the lack of democratic discussion and procedures during the Ethics Commission voting was called a farce, some even more suspicious proceedings happened this weekend.
In day 1 of the FIDE General Assembly Yolander Persaud elected FIDE Ethics Commission Chairman in a dramatic day that was called the first crucial election which Russia loses in the last 30 years. In day 2 the Russian / Kyrgyz proposal rejected by the FIDE General Assembly
The delegates seem to have had no choice after the Russian supported Candidate was discovered to have ties to Pro-Russian, right-wing, anti-immigration, anti-LGBT, populist and nationalist political party, while the US State Department pressed in coordination with possible IOC sanctions and loss of funding for federations.
While these decision seem like a victory for the united European block (see who voted how here), other major decisions were passed under the radar.
FIDE World School Championship disappears
With an almost-impossible-to-notice small paragraph in a multi-page announcement here https://fide.com/news/3168 (article CM2-2024/22 somewhere in the middle of the document) the FIDE Council just announced by themselves that the World School Championship is replaced with another “World Championship under 7-17”. Without any public discussion or voting, a historic and successful annual FIDE event such as the FIDE World School Championship, always awarded through public bidding procedures, will simply disappear from the FIDE handbook.
Giving up a brand
The agenda of the FIDE General Assembly is sent to delegates in August. There was an item about an organization with the name “International School Chess Association” to be accepted as an affiliated member of FIDE. Many such school “associations” or “unions” were affiliated with FIDE also in the past. The delegates were ready to listen as to where this association will be based and who are the members. However, during the Assembly, the wording of this third-party organization was changed on the go to “International School Chess Federation“, giving it essentially the name of FIDE (“International Chess Federation”) and just adding the word “School” in it. There was no discussion on the name either, as it is essentially giving up a FIDE brand for the first time in history. The 200 national federations, members of FIDE, each collectively beneficially owns 0.5% of all FIDE assets including the name and the brand of the organization. It is not clear what the direct benefits and compensations are, if any at all, for the national chess federations for giving up their collective rights to the brand name “International Chess Federation”
Throwback: there were attempts at creation of a new world championship , there was no official reaction by FIDE and there was mockery
Transparency missing again
Timur Turlov openly said that he will be the sole founder if the International School Chess Federation and only later other members will be added. As with many other procedures in FIDE, transparency was neglected – there was absolutely no mentioning or discussion about why other founding members cannot be named from the beginning. After pressure from FIDE delegates Malcolm Pein (England), Geoffrey Borg (Malta) and others, Arkady Dvorkovich simply said that the FIDE Council will deal with such “details” but without confirming that these will be again submitted to the FIDE General Assembly for final approval.
Further implications
There is an important detail that will be a topic of further discussion. Outsourcing activities, championships and brands to third-parties opens the door for violation of IOC sanctions, something that chess received a clear warning for.