What belongs to MCF must stay with MCF.

I recently had a discussion with some people concerned about the deepening rot within MCF. This is what I said. I used the example of Hamid in my explanation but the person could just as easily be Greg.

When Hamid was the Secretary of MCF, he collected a lot of contacts. Now the question is, do the contacts belong to MCF or Hamid? Today we have Hamid the private organiser in DATCC and Hamid the committee member of MCF. One Hamid serves his own pocket and the other Hamid serves the chess community in MCF.

So lets use the coming Kelantan Open for the sake of discussion. They are thinking of using 45 minutes. That means it won't be Standard Fide rated. To me that's a shame. It will take almost the same effort to do a Standard Fide rated event if that was what was needed. So what will Kelantan need to do that? First of all do we agree that there is a need for more Standard Fide rated tournaments in Malaysia? Don't we have enough rapid events now? And if so doesn't the contacts that Hamid collected belong to MCF and so needs to be shared with Kelantan too? Then Kelantan can also get more Fide rated players and we will be growing another event for Malaysia.

I argued that so long as Hamid remains in MCF then those contacts belong to MCF and so must be shared. If Hamid does not share then he must leave MCF and go fully private to remain within his rights.

Now this is important. MCF cannot be used for private enterprise. MCF belongs to all State Associations which belongs to all its members ie the chess community. And so MCF resources must not be subverted for private gain.

Note: I also don't think there is a need for big prize money if you are just starting out. That can come later when Kelantan has done a few Open events and have won the confidence of sponsors. The chess community will understand and support the effort to raise Malaysian standards in chess.