Chess: The Final Conflict

Between Jose’s guest blogging and book discussion we are about to start on Amos Guiora’s book on religious freedom I  want to sandwich a short notice about my recent favorite topic: no-holds-barred full contact chess arbitration.

Backstory: here for the arbitration, here for the Russian regional politics and space aliens,and here for how it relates to the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero.

I know you have been waiting with bated breath and I have news to pass along: first the case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport has been dismissed.

You can find a copy of the decision in a link from the FIDE press release.

The ChessVibes blog has posted a good analysis with lots of color commentary and background info. The main issue was whether Ilyumzhinov and others on his slate had been members for more than a year of the national federations that nominated them. According to the CAS, the FIDE Electoral Regulations are drafted such that a nominee only “should” as opposed to “must” or “shall” be a member in good standing. Talk about first year drafting. The analysis at ChessVibes concludes:

In other words: Ilyumzhinov’s ticket wasn’t disqualified by the CAS in Lausanne because of poor formulated regulations, which was never discovered before because thus far nobody needed to check these regulations. And it seems the chess world got stuck in a Catch-22 in that it might need a new FIDE President to improve the regulations that kept the incumbent one for running for a new term.

For a more idiosyncratic take (as well as various crimes against typesetting) check out the Ilyumzhinov campaign’s release about the case.

Ilyumzhinov was subsequently re-elected the World Chess Federation president.

So four more years of space aliens, Chess Cities, and who knows what else. I think a galactic ambassadorship might be in order!