MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Falklands: World Chess Federation rejects using the game for political purposes
Argentine players convened in the Islands between September 2018 and March 2019 to hold two tournaments and a single match The Argentine Chess Federation’s attempt to get legal recognition of their secret tournaments, held in the Falklands, have been denied. This was expressed in a statement from FIDE, the World Chess Federation, which also urged all federations to refrain from using chess tournaments for political purposes.
As revealed in the Penguin News, Argentine players convened in the Islands between September 2018 and March 2019 to hold two tournaments and a single match.
Argentina’s governing chess body then submitted the results to the World Chess Federation, FIDE, for ‘rating’, a process which allows players to use their results as an indication of their playing strength.
The games were submitted as having taken place in ‘Puerto Argentino’.
FIDE released a statement about the matter on Monday June 3. It said:
“FIDE has received a complaint that, between September 2018 and March 2019, two tournaments and a chess match, which took place in Stanley, in the British Overseas Territory of the Falkland Islands, were filed for consideration for FIDE rating by the Argentine Chess Federation.
Federations reserve the exclusive right to submit tournaments for rating which take place in their territory.
Because this was not done, and no attempt was made to seek permission or even inform the English Chess Federation, under whose purview chess in the Falkland Islands comes, the FIDE Qualification Commission will exclude these tournaments from rating. FIDE urges all federations to refrain from using chess tournaments for political purposes.”
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Read all commentsThink- That Chess match in Iceland was indeed an international-m played in a neutral 3rd country as at the time USA and USSR were not really speaking to each other . Thus keeping Sport out of Politics. If one side or the other then triumphed about it- that life- but the actual sport event was done in a non-political way.
Jun 07th, 2019 - 12:27 pm +3A concept Argentina always fails to understand and then get surprised when they get international condemnation- hell even the N and S Koreans understand it!
Think,
Jun 07th, 2019 - 09:16 pm +3The Islands compete in the friendly international “small islands games” that we are a member of - and we compete in the Commonwealth Games again as a Member of the Commonwealth.Hence the team parades with the legitimate Falklands Flag same as any other member.
Easy to play % with such a small population- meaningless! Actually a lot of the cost is raised privately and donated by private business.
We do things OPENLY - not secretive and hiding and telling your accomodation hosts porkies.
Clearly, they are just misunderstood. Flying all the way to sit in a hotel room playing chess.... why would that be political? It was probably raining.....
Jun 07th, 2019 - 10:58 am +2Commenting for this story is now closed.
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