TCF renews offer to host the 2011 European Women Championship

Turkey Withdraws as Host of European Women’s Chess Championship

By Dylan Loeb McClain

In a letter posted on the Turkish Chess Federation’s Web site on Wednesday, Ali Nihat Yazici, the federation’s president, announced that Turkey had withdrawn as host of the European Women’s Chess Championship. It was to be held in March 2011 in Gaziantep, a city in the southeastern part of the country. The prize fund was to be 104,000 euros (about $139,000 at current exchange rates), which would have exceeded the 101,000 euro prize fund ($135,000) for the overall European Championship, which will be held in Aix-les-Bains, France.

The reason given for Turkey’s withdrawal was a conflict between the federation and the European Chess Union, which has jurisdiction over the championship. Yazici wrote that he tried to work out the details of organizing the championship with Sava Stoisavljevic, the general secretary of the E.C.U., but she insulted him and treated him in a condescending manner. He contacted Silvio Danailov, the president of the E.C.U., in an effort to resolve the problems, but he and the federation were “completely neglected.” So a decision was made to withdraw as the organizer.

On the surface, the dispute seems to be over fees and the language of the contract between the E.C.U. and the Turkish federation, but there may be more to it than that. Danailov and Yazici were opponents in a September election for the presidency of the E.C.U. and there may be lingering bad blood.

In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Danailov suggested that there may be a more important issue: The federation might have had trouble financing the championship. He said that the Turkish federation was supposed to put down a 7,500 euro ($10,000) deposit in May, but he said it was not done.

Then, six months before the event, in September, the federation was supposed to provide a 97,500 euro ($130,000) bank guarantee that the money for the prizes was available, but he said that also did not happen.

Danailov said of Yazici, “The guy was looking to withdraw somehow from the very beginning.” He said that he would look for a new host for the championship. He said he did not want to fight with Yazici or the Turkish federation. “We always try to find sponsors and sell chess. That is hard enough already.”

"It is great pity to read your comments on this issue, claiming that we do not have the money to organise it. This is not true. We attribute this to your limited experience as President of the ECU. We want to show our hand again, like just after election, and offer again to organise the event. We hope that you will close the file on the elections in your mind, and as a chess person will make the right move now.

We are willing to organise the European Individual Women’s Chess Championship under the same conditions agreed and finalised in attached regulations. We do not, however, want to communicate with your General Secretary on this issue, while she is behaving improperly to our federation, and to me. It would be proper for her to apologise for this.

If you want to run ECU in the best possible manner, and to find the best organisers for each specific event, kindly answer us in time, and let us organise the best European Women Championship ever, in Gaziantep, in March 2011. We hope you will agree with our proposal, and we await your answer before Monday 24, January 2011, at 1:00 p.m. Turkish time.

If you think that the proposed time schedule is not enough to organise event in March, we are ready to organise it from 31st July until 19 August, in Gaziantep. However, you should note that it will be very hot there at that time."