Report on the 78th FIDE Congress
By Bill Kelleher   
November 20, 2007
 Following are the decisions taken at the 78th FIDE Congress Executive Board meeting (Antalya, Turkey, November 11-16.)

Olympiad

The 2008 Olympiad will be held in Dresden Germany.  FIDE signed a contract with the City of Dresden to hold the Olympiad next year from the November 12th to the 25th.  There was some concern about the financing but the Dresden City Council finally approved the necessary funds. There are a number of significant rules changes for next year's Olympiad: 

Both the men's and women's teams will consist of 4 players plus one reserve.  Currently the men's team consists of 4 players plus 2 reserves and the women's team consists of 3 players plus 1 reserve. 
 
The number of rounds will be reduced from 14 to 11. 

The scoring will be changed from the current game points to match points.

Anti-Doping

In compliance with new WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) regulations, FIDE will introduce "out of competition" testing in 2008.  This decision has the potential to be extremely controversial.  Fortunately the testing will be limited to the 80 top-rated men players and the 5 top-rated women.  Additionally only 10% of these 85 players will be tested.  I do not have the latest rating list in front of me, but I think that no more than 4 or 5 of our players are rated high enough to be tested.  FIDE has been sensitive to our concerns about testing in the past so hopefully none of our players will be tested.


Women's World Championship

The Women's World Championship will be held in late June 2008 in San Luis, Argentina.  Initially it was scheduled for mid-May which would have conflicted with the US Women's Championship.  However the Argentine's graciously agreed to move the dates for the WWC.

Global Chess

FIDE has signed a contract with Global Chess to market chess world wide, and to manage the FIDE website.  The hope is that Global Chess CEO, Bessel Kok, will use his contacts in the business world to find sponsors for the major FIDE events.  Only time will tell how successful this will be. 

Tournament Registration Fees

The FIDE Executive Board approved an increase in the tournament registration fees charged to federations. These will go into effect in 2008.  Following is a comparison of the old and new fees:

Current Registration Fee Schedule

 
Round Robin Tournament

Fee in Euros
Category 0-3

 30
Category 4&5

 60
Category 6&7

 90
Category 8-10

 120
Above Category 10

 Multiply Category by 30 Euros
 
Swiss Tournaments -The number of players multiplied by 1 Euro.
 
New Registration Fee Schedule

Round Robin Tournament

Fee in Euros
Category 0-3

 50
Category 4-7

 100
Category 8-10

 150
Category 11-14

 200
Above Category 14

 300

Also the maximum amount of tournament registration fees that a federation can pay in a year has been raised from 5200 Euros to 15,000 Euros.  I believe that last year the USCF paid around 4300 Euros in registration fees, so this will have a minimal impact on us.  The federations most affected by this increase will be Germany and Russia.

Continental Championship of the Americas

During the Congress there was a meeting of the federations in the Americas Continent.  The main decision from this meeting is, that because of its popularity, to make the Continental Championship a yearly event.  Currently the Championship is held every other year to qualify 7 players from our continent into the World Cup.  In World Cup years it will retain its old name but only 6 players will qualify for the World Cup.  In off years it will be called the Pan Am Continental Championship and only the winner will qualify for the World Cup.

Problems with the submission of USCF title applications

I had a talk with FIDE ratings administrator, Casto Abundo, and he suggested one way in which we could streamline our submission process.  He feels that currently our system is too centralized.  When arbiters send results to USCF they have to be input again by the USCF office before they are sent to FIDE.  Abundo says that with some programming changes we could eliminate this step and that arbiters' results could be sent to FIDE without the office having to input them again.  I am not a computer person but this suggestion certainly seems worth investigating.
 

Men's World Championship

Negotiations are ongoing between Anand and Kramnik for the World Championship match next year.  Deputy President of FIDE, Makropoulos briefed the board about the status of negotiations.  He said that Anand had put forward number of demands before he would sign a contract to play the match.  Makropoulos said that he felt all of Anand's demands could be accommodated except one.  Anand wants to restore the right of the champion to claim victory if the match ends in a tie.  This provision was eliminated a number of years ago and the Deputy Presiden was of the opinion that it should not be restored.  The Executive Board agreed with the Deputy President.

FIDE Vice President Bill Kelleher