"The 30 seconds a move increment (and any increment in general!) should be abandoned. That’s essentially deprived fans of the enthralling spectacle of time trouble."

If this happens, Chess would be pretty much dead for me. Those timetrouble scrambles can be exciting to watch maybe (for me, not), but is very effectively destroying the essence and the beauty of the game, not to mention also the quality of play.

To: World Chess Federation

Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

President Executive Board 82 FIDE Congress

Dear Mr. President,

Dear Executive Board Members,

Dear Delegates,

I am writing to you on behalf of the European chess family regarding the forthcoming FIDE Congress in Krakow. Namely, with my colleagues I analyzed the proposed changes, since they are very important for the future of chess, especially from the viewpoint of organization of chess competitions and their further development and growth in number.

In addition, I read very attentively the letters sent to the FIDE Executive Board by the Spanish Chess Federation and the Royal Dutch Chess Federation which are concerned with the proposed changes.

Furthermore, I received a certain number of e-mails and phone calls from the representatives of federations as well as from organizers, arbiters and chess players.

All the phone calls and conversations contains one core in common – a great concern for the future of chess competitions if those proposals are adopted.

With that being said, before to give any explanation, I take this opportunity to make my own proposal:

I SUGGEST: SINCE THE PROPOSALS IN QUESTION KNOWN AS "REGULATIONS ON REGISTRATION & LICENSING OF PLAYERS" AND "PROPOSAL TO CHARGE RATING FEES DIRECTLY TO ORGANIZERS" ARE NOT DISCUSSED YET, IT`S BETTER TO AVOID TO MAKE A DECISION ON THEM AT THE FORTHCOMING FIDE CONGRESS.

Namely, as the President of the continental federation, I believe that such changes need to be discussed more broadly reaching clear answers to the following questions – why have these changes been implemented and in which way the chess world will benefit from these changes?

I feel free to make a few comments on the above mentioned:

1. It is evident that, according to the new proposal for registration and the payments for the rated tournaments, the communication with FIDE shifts from the national federations straight to the tournament organizers. I am pretty sure that it brings a great danger, especially for the reason that, according to both the FIDE and the ECU Statutes, our partners are national federations.

2. Knowing the situation in many European countries, I claim that a huge number of organizers do not have knowledge enough to fulfill communication standard with FIDE regarding the rating of tournaments.

3. I am pretty sure that the annual payment of licenses, no matter the amount, would instantly decrease the number of active chess players ready to participate in the competitions even by half, and I believe that the same would happen with the tournaments if the launched proposals would be adopted.

I would like to express my concerns regarding these proposals, for they would cause a significant decrease in the number of chess competitions, or their transformation into unofficial ones – with unrated status. In addition, it might also happen that some national federations will ignore this system.

Dear Mr. President,

Dear Executive Board Members,

I really hope that the common sense will prevail like many times so far, and I believe that now you will find the solution how to avoid a great crisis and danger which might shake the chess motto idea "GENS UNA SUMUS".

Silvio Danailov

The crooks from @ChessDom are crying because they can't steal others people work anymore : http://www.chessdom.com/agons-new-p...>

Maybe these Chessdom headlines from the last couple of years explain things:

<The scandal in Bulgarian chess deepens>

<Amid scandals Danailov wins BCF elections>

<Corruption scandal rocks the Bulgarian Chess Federation>

This report reminds me WCC match Topalov vs Kramnik in Elista 2006>