- ECSC 2025 in Athens,
- WCCC & WCSC in Alba Iulia
An online WFCC Meeting took part via Zoom connection on 25th October 2024, organized and executed by WFCC secretary Mohammad Alhallak. Among 35 participants there were delegates or deputies of 28 countries: Argentine, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine.
⇨ Agenda with all the details
The first topic to discuss and decide on was selection of the hosts for the two regular yearly events in 2025, 18th European Chess Solving Championship and 67th World Congress of Chess Composition (including 48th World Chess Solving Championship).
The only bid for ECSC 2025 came from Greece and was accepted by acclamation. The 18th ECSC will be held in University of Athens, from 25th to 27th April 2025.
During discussion about the three bids for WCCC & WCSC 2025, Honorary Member Hannu Harkola commented expressed opinion that according to the Statutes only the bids from member countries should be taken in consideration, and not the Montenegro bid. Since we have had exceptions before (Turkey ECSC 2008 and Montenegro ECSC 2014), the case was put on voting, and the bid wasn’t accepted, with 15 votes against it, 8 for, and 5 abstentions.
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In the competition between two remaining candidates, Estonia (Tallinn) and Romania (Alba Iulia), the latter bid got 20 votes, and the former 7, with 1 abstention. Thus, the 67th WCCC and 48th WCSC will be held in the historical venue Alba Iulia, from 5th to 12th July 2025. It will be the first ever Congress in Romania, in the year when the Romanian Chess Federation celebrates its centenary.
Voting about FIDE World Cup and other FIDE supported projects in 2025 had three phases. At the beginning, 14 delegates expressed their opinion that we need FIDE World Cup, and 6 were against it, with 8 abstentions. Out of several options for the World Cup yearly budget (in Euros: 10000, 8000, 6000, 5000, 3000, 2000 and zero) most votes were given to: 5000 (7), 3000 (7) and 2000 (7), with 4 votes for 10000 and 3 for no budget at all. In the 2nd round, more than half of delegates (15) supported the budget of 3000 EUR, 8 delegates voted for 5000 and 3 for the middle option of 4000 EUR.
The decision to significantly reduce the FIDE World Cup budget in 2025, and to allocate remaining 7000 EUR to other FIDE related projects, opened the question of financing the demanding duties of World Cup Director. In an email exchange on the topic before the session (that engaged 12 delegates and 10 active composers), Torsten Linss generously offered to volunteer as the WC director in 2025, and this was accepted with a gratitude. All other details, including suggestion to revive the tradition of FIDE Olympic tourneys in even years, were postponed.
The last part of this online session was about the proposal Thomas Maeder made to WFCC Presidium to suspend Russia’s delegate Georgy Evseev, because of his statement about situation in Ukraine, expressed during Jurmala WCCC 2024. The request by Mr. Maeder, the transcript of the mentioned speech of Mr. Evseev, and the statement by the Presidium on the matter are presented in the Agenda. Presidium recommended Mr. Evseev to reconsider his statement and asked WCCT Committee to discuss the compatibility of Mr. Evseev as the spokesman in mew situation. No measures or sanctions in such a case have been predicted by the WFCC Statutes.
In a short speech, Mr. Evseev said his federation didn’t allow him to make any political comments on the matter. At the same time, he decided to step down from the positions of the WCCT Committee spokesman and the FIDE Album Committee member.
Marjan Kovačević suggested that in the current situation, with four WFCC member countries involved in wars, the WFCC needs to establish an Ethic Committee to work on Ethic Codex. Upon his proposal, Honorary Presidents Klaus Wenda and Harry Fouigiaxis, as well as the delegate of India Narayan Shankar Ram accepted to be the members if the working group, with Mr. Fougiaxis as the leader.
Marjan Kovačević, WFCC president
