Where did our money go?

This is a story about the disappearance of money

During the European Chess Championship in Dresden I stayed in the IBIS hotel. The European Chess Union had done the participants an offer: Full board in a single room in the IBIS hotel during 14 nights for 98 Euros a night. Payment could not be done directly to the hotel. The National federations had to transfer the money to the bank account of the European Chess Union (ECU). They would then pay IBIS. This is an important point to understand what happened. Many players made use of this arrangement, of my federation alone they were: GM Tiviakov, GM Smeets GM Werle and myself.

Lunch and dinner in the hotel were extremely poor. Both in terms of quality and quantity. Our complaints to the waiters did not have any effect. After some seven days I spoke to the cook. He told me he couldn’t change the situation since he had been ordered to prepare meals for the players for value of five euros. And indeed five euros average seems like a good indication for what we got, although it could also have been less.

Now it was time for some calculation. We paid 98 Euros. The normal rate for a single room including breakfast (Which could, for example, be found on a billboard next to the entrance) is 70,50 euros. 98-70,50 = 27,50 euros left for lunch and dinner. Lunch and dinner together had a value of ten euros so 27,50 -10= 17,50 euros per person per day disappeared! That is 245 euros per person for the whole stay.

By now we had grown very curious how much ECU had actually paid IBIS. The manager of IBIS refused to tell us, saying this was something between the players and the organisers. Then I spoke with the organiser in charge of these matters, mister Verleger. He also refused to tell me. One gets the impression there was something to hide.

I think the national federations whose players stayed in the IBIS should claim a decent refund from ECU.

Furthermore in the future national federations should transfer money directly to hotels and not through ECU, or any other organisation. And if they must, they should ask for written guarantees /specifications where the money will go. Otherwise history may well repeat itself, for example during the 2008 Olympiad, in Dresden.

GM Erik van den Doel Leiden Holland

Boris Kutin response 23rd April 2007

"This is a response to the Open Letter from GM Erik van den Doel concerning the European Individual Championships 2007 in Dresden published on the TWIC Site and elsewhere.

His complaint is about the cost and quality of food in the IBIS Hotel.

He does not mention the fact that this was the most successful ever European Championship with the highest ever prize fund of 250,000 Euros which was played in excellent conditions but chess organisers are, of course, used to hearing only negative comments from some quarters.

He alleges that the ECU received the money for the hotel accommodation, infers that ECU received a commission from these payments and negotiated with the hotels a low standard of meals. None of this is true nor were these allegations raised with me whilst in Dresden which I would have thought would be an elementary courtesy before publishing an Open Letter attacking the ECU.

The facts are:

1. There was no stipulation that players had to stay in any designated hotel. They were free to choose and to make their own arrangements direct with any hotel of which there are many in Dresden with a wide range of prices.

2. The Organising Committee (of which the ECU is not part - we only sanction the event) negotiated deals with hotels which players could either take up or not as they wished.

3. No payments for hotel accommodation were made through the ECU nor did the ECU receive any commission.

A retraction by Erik would be appreciated.

Boris Kutin President ECU"

European Chess Union c/o. Deutscher Schachbund e. V. Hanns-Braun-Str./Friesenhaus I 14053 Berlin Tel.: 030/3000 78 11