open letter to FIDE

Dear FIDE

               What are you doing with this "registration" business that you want to introduce this year in a few months? I am just a normal chess player who plays a few OTB rated events a year. Why do you need my passport details? What am I? A terrorist? A bank robber? And why are you adding to the already heavy workload of tournament organisers?

        I know. It is about money, money, money. I have money. You want my money. You want as much of my money as you can grab.

        Clap. Clap. Clap. Aren't I good? I would make Sherlock Holmes jealous.  

         Please take your brainless, excuse for a chess organisation and shove it where a proctologist does extremely intimate medical exams. You are the most incompetent excuse for a sporting organisation that I have ever come across. You could not sell cow manure to a dung beetle.

       And please spare me the spin, the double talk and PR generated claptrap about me "not understanding" your changes that are in the "best interests" of chess players.

     FIDE has to go as a chess body. It is about time that this swinging,maggot-ridden carcass of a Fawlty Towers joke fest was thrown onto the rubbish heap and replaced with something better.

    FIDE, get out of chess. Get out of my life. Go jump onto your spaceship with your resident nutter, Kirsan.

    I would sign off with something that rhymes with fire truck. But hey, this is a family show.

     What a joke. Where's Basil Fawlty?

     Andrew Thornton [Australia]

please aware me of what you're talking about.

passport details?

FIDE passed a resolution saying that if you want to take part in FIDE rated events you have to be a registered member of your national chess federation. One of the requirements for registration is to provide a photograph and passport details. Then you will get a FIDE ID Card, and only be able to play in FIDE rated events if you produce that card.

I have no idea what the logic behind this is unless they think that 'ringers' have been taking part in tournaments pretending to be someone else?

Everyone hates FIDE, even the editorial in no.151 in Chessbase magazine slams FIDE.  I'd type a quote but don't have permission to repost it, but it mentions that four player federations have the same voting rights as major federations.  Karpov and Kasparov went after them (with the backing of some chess federations) because of certain statues and Ilyumzhinov's legality as a candidate.  The FIDE presidential board two years afterward came after the US, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ukraine, England, and Georgia regarding how many VPs were appointed. 

FIDE really has to go.  Maybe the ICC can take over but expand into real life Chess?  Real and online ratings will still be separate of course and rating transcends jurisdiction, so it would be one unified rating and none of this USCF + FIDE rating stuff. 

Oh well they could simply check players ID at the event, to see if the names correspond. The thing I'm really against is if FIDE wants to store our passport details. It's kinda of a big deal because with passport details somebody could forge fake IDs, e.g. we never know if somebody might hack into FIDE's server to commit identity fraud.

I noticed most events here in the UK have the double rating of the ECF and FIDE... at least they should allow me to play there and only get ratings with the ECF.