Now what is wrong with that article?

Ref: Here and here.

Lets see. Lets go back to basics first. An Association is supposed to serve the community. So there are regional chess associations. Each serving their own locality. They are NGO's which means they are not supposed to make a profit and all the money earned is poured back into the Association to better serve their members. Period.

So you will find that properly runned associations are managed mainly by volunteers, parents etc. So they are right in a way when they say there is no money in chess.

An aside: I have been associated with associations and its politics for 8 years now. I know that there are sponsors who will sponsor an association out of their corporate social responsibility. I have written about this. How PICA asked a sponsor to write a proposal to them when they wanted to sponsor PICA from their 2 million CSR fund thus driving them away. (A few days later I was sacked since I brought them in). I have also organised a tournament for PICA which at that time was the largest in Perak's history. So I have insights.

So there is more than enough money to run an association if it is done the right way. But there are serious distortions in our structures. Look carefully at Tze Pin's article. What was the title he used? A money making scheme? Is that a freudian slip?

The distortions are in fact that a few people are using the associations for money making schemes. And they do it by diverting the money away to their private enterprises. So you will see trainers who enter into associations to ensure that their players make the list despite the fact that their players are not good. You only have to see the last SEA games selection for an example. In fact if you look at the last Olympiad you will also see that same trainer playing for the Olympiad just beacuse he is an official of MCF. Can you imagine that?

You will see private organisers using associations to get funding by pretending to be an association. An example is KLCA. Now when this happens, who is going to serve the KL chess community?

You will also see organisers banning strong players in order to make their own players look good.

Note: Some sponsors will only sponsor community type activities. Private entities need to find other type of sponsors. But they can only get those type of sponsors based on real track record which they do not have and are unwilling to work for.

So these are the corruptions of the system. Private enterprises are supposed to compete in the open market. If they are good they thrive and if they are lousy they bite the dust. So we now have these people who cannot survive in the open market enter into associations and then they try to make money out of it.

But the associations suffer. The money is siphoned away. We also now see the bannings, backdoor selection etc. We need to keep the two functions separate. There is enough money to run the Associations. But there is not enough for the greed of failed entrepreneurs.

Go back to Tze Pin's article. Take out the costs. The rest is purely for the associations runned by volunteers as it should be.

Now you understand who is leading our associations. Trainers that cannot train. Private organisers who cannot compete and so need to disguise as associations.

I submit that this is the major reason why we do not have a GM by now. Instead of trainers raising their skills they still use methods that do not work. They rely instead on their ability to slip their players via the backdoor etc. So you now see why these people and their supporters fought us so hard against written selection.

Now can you understand why they have all those ready excuses? You are all washed up at 15yo. Actually it's not our players that are at fault. Not our talented players. It's those trainers that are all washed up.

There is no knowledge that they can transfer to the players compared with what is available online after approximately 12yo. The only thing they can transfer is their fears. So they need to buck up.

Can you imagine that after all these years, Tze Pin still don't know what the function of an association is? What does this say about his ability to learn? What would our children learn from him? The type of players our system produces after enough of these distortions are those that still think they are the best in Asia etc etc.. Stuck in la la land.

This is not good enough for our talented Malaysians. We deserve better but we won't get it unless we demand for it.

ps: Look carefully. Think of all the people that fit the profile that I have described. Are they not all trainers? My suggestion to them is to give up trying to look good by promising their players all the backdoors. This keeps them weak. Try instead to coach them into Champions.

My challenge to you. We meet on the table and you can show me how good you are by thrashing my players in fair competition instead of trying to ban them. Fair enough? Or do you still need your crutches to compete with me. If you truly love chess like you say you do then isn't this the better way?