I was chairman of the BCF at the time and effectively Chief Executive.
The reason Sarah was removed from her position as Editor of ChessMoves had nothing whatsoever to do with her stance against Ilyumzhinov and her stance about our not playing in the Olympiad. She was invited to a BCF Board Meeting, her views listened to and the decision was made democratically to go to Elista in 1998. She made allegations against Ilyumzhinov that have never been substantiated. She also said the Kalmykians didn't want us there. I did go and I doubt all those children could have been brainwashed or reheared into pretending they were happy to see the Olympiad there.
The reason was 1. She was a loose cannon who had exposed the BCF to the possibility of a libel case by a British citizen. Repetition of that concern could only have been solved by my censoring the magazine every month; other officers had failed to notice the problem. 2. The federation needed to save money and my volunteering to edit the magazine free for a period enabled me to pressurise directors into taking cuts in their own budgets.
Somebody commented that I was party to the ECF decision to sue FIDE. That is perfectly true. I backed the elected officers who believed this was the best course of action, namely Nigel, Lawrence and CJ. I didn't personally agree as I believe going to law is nearly always pointless. It is also true that I have travelled on FIDE business 4 times this year and will be doing so again to Turkey.
The purpose of this court case is that 3 FIDE Vice Presidents were elected against the FIDE Statutes. The ironic thing is that all 3 volunteered to stand down as VPs. This was led by Ali, who stated his willingness publicly in Krakow and had done so before. When I asked David Jarrett, why not following the FIDE Statutes? He responded, 'We aren't going to be bullied into doing so.'
Again ironically, until Ali's pronouncement about the arbiters I had thought him the best chess organizer I have ever met. And, yes, that did include me.
Total personal pronoun count: 14.
PS. 10.20pm, 9/6/12.
Life imitates art! The Little I Am has now added a further claim:
Ulster Chess Union tried to affiliate to FIDE separately quite recently. Earlier so did the Isle of Man (at the same time as Greenland,etc.) Both were turned down under the current FIDE statutes. Had the latter applied when I first suggested it, they would have been accepted.
