FÉDÉRATION INTERNATIONALE DES ÉCHECS Recognized by the International Olympic Committee 1 Avenue de la Gare - 1002 Lausanne, Switzerland Αthens office: 9 Syggrou Ave., 11743 Athens, Greece Tel.: (+41) 21 5087028, Tel.: (+30) 210 9212047, Email: office@fide.com www.fide.com


Zug, July 20, 2018

To: All Chess Federation


Mr. Dvorkovitch produces fake news to terrify national chess federations


Dear chess friends

As the Treasurer of FIDE I am forced to write a clarification to all federations since Mr. Dvorkovitch spreads false information. I am very much surprised regarding such an action of a candidate for FIDE Presidency since it shows that Mr. Dvorkovitch either has no knowledge of FIDE's Statutes and Regulations or he deliberately misinforms the world chess community.

Thus, let's set out the situation:

(1) On July 16 and 17, we have sent to all the federations the invoices for the usual charges (event fees, trainers fees, arbiters fee, etc.) of the first six months of 2018 (as we have done in past years). In all these invoices no deadline for payment was given, i.e. we have not said that federations cannot play at the Olympiad or that they cannot participate at the election if they don’t pay their debts by a certain date.

(2) Then on July 18 Mr. Filatov, the president of the Russian Chess Federation, has written a letter to FIDE (see www.fide.com [Federations cannot be excluded from elections due to debts]) in which he claims that debts must be paid by July 23 and if not FIDE administration will exclude federations from participation at the Olympiad and, in particular, of the participation in the election. This deadline of July 23, however, is a pure creation of the Russian Chess Federation and is completely unfounded.

(3) Since the letter of the Russian Chess Federation absolutely lacks any justification I have written a clarification on the same day (see www.fide.com [Federations cannot be excluded from elections due to debts]). This letter was also sent to the Russian Chess Federation and it was clearly stated that the claims of the Russian Chess Federation are wrong and misleading the public. I have also stressed that no federation will be excluded from voting at the election since this is against the Statutes and Regulations. Even more, I have pointed out that I will fight against such intentions if the Russian Chess Federation aims to exclude some federations.

(4) In spite of my immediate reply on July 18, Mr. Dvorkovitch then wrote an email to all federations spreading the same misinformation as the Russian Chess Federation has done (see point 2 above). In his email Mr. Dvorkovitch conjures up images of non-transparency, manipulation and concealment. By his email, Mr. Dvorkovitch misleads the world chess community with the false fact that federations will be excluded from playing and voting if they don’t pay their debt by July 23. As clarified above this is an untenable assertion: the date of July 23 is a pure creation and the allegedly consequences have to be considered as fake news.








(5) As the letter of the Russian Chess Federation dated July 18, Mr. Dvorkovitch's email of the same day does not reflect FIDE's common practice applied for decades. If a federation has been in arrears with FIDE, our intention was not to exclude them from services but to work out a plan for payment of the debt. Hereby, FIDE always followed the spirit that federations should be given the chance to be part of our family (gens una sumus) and not to be excluded.


Summarizing, dear chess friends, it is rather annoying to see that Mr. Dvorkovitch deliberately misinforms the chess community. By creating a complete fictitious threat in his email Mr. Dvorkovitch terrifies the federations by spreading such fake news. In my personal view this is a disgraceful election-driven action. Moreover, the pathetic attempt to discredit FIDE's administration is obvious and of lowest level. For the future I hope that Mr. Dvorkovitch will bring some fairness in his electoral campaign.


Sincerely yours

Prof. Dr. Adrian M. Siegel FIDE Treasurer