Towards the end of September the Solomon Islands Chess Federation is organising their first international tournament. It is not intended to be high level event, especially given that I am currently second seed. Instead the intention of the event is to help a pool of local Solomon Island players achieve a FIDE rating, which can then help assist other local players to get their ratings. For a developing chess country this is considered to be a desirable thing.
Nonetheless not every country feels this way. As FIDE base their yearly membership fees for a country in part on the number of FIDE rated players that country has, extra FIDE rated players mean a hike in the FIDE fees (although it must be said it is currently 1 euro per player to a maximum of 1500 euros). And I can remember a conversation I had 20 years ago with an Australian Chess Federation delegate who argued against FIDE rating Australian events, as it would only add more players to this list, at an increased expenditure to the ACF. If I remember the conversation correctly, they had no problem with the 'elite' players having ratings (as they played international chess) but the rest could just make do with the ACF rating system. Of course the last 20 years have shown that (a) players are keen to have a FIDE rating and (b) FIDE rating an event is actually an effective marketing hook for a tournament. Indeed, the ACF itself now take advantage of the situation by charging its own 'processing' fee for FIDE rated events, above and beyond what FIDE charge the ACF. So I guess that argument has been dealt with, both externally and internally.
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2 comments:
Id rather have an FIDE rating then a ACF rating any day. ACF profiteering of the FIDE back. Does one have to play outside of Australia to escape paying an overcharged price for entering a FIDE tournament? No wonder chess is suffering in Australia compared with the rest of the world.
"Indeed, the ACF itself now take advantage of the situation by charging its own 'processing' fee for FIDE rated events, above and beyond what FIDE charge the ACF."
Hi Shaun, this is an awful distortion of the facts. The ACF has been subsidising FIDE-rated tournaments for many, many years by not passing on the true cost of FIDE ratings to organisers/players. Previously, only the tournament registration fee was passed on at exchange rate - none of the annual fees for having FIDE-rated players were passed on. The ACF's 'processing' fee is to cover these costs and the increased amount of adminstration it takes for FIDE provisioning. (Let me know when PNG expands to be on the other side of FIDE's generosity equation, will you?)
The ACF offers a sophisticated, reliable internal rating system to all Australian players - but at the same time it has not blocked the FIDE-rating of any tournament in Australia should any organiser want it (subject to their good standing in the ACF) in the face of FIDE's money-grubbing into internal systems at a club level, by lowering the ratings floor on a system that wasn't designed for this purpose, where the ratings cannot possibly have any international meaning.
It seems to me that the ACF still offers both rating systems, but it must recover some costs for going to all that work on behalf of FIDE at lower levels, which is why FIDE-rated organisers are now charged extra fees by the ACF if the class of the tournament isn't high enough.
For being so enlightened, we cop criticism like Anonymous #1, who states: "Id rather have an FIDE rating then a ACF rating any day. ACF profiteering of the FIDE back."
... who somehow thinks they're being intelligent by being illiterate and self-contradictory, but is just another useless anonymous cretin nonetheless - one of your free-speech mates perhaps, Shaun?
Kind Regards,
Greg Canfell
FIDE Ratings & Admin
Australian Chess Federation
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