When you pay the bills you are the boss except.....

This post is inspired by some of the questions raised by State Associations when they are running National events as seems to be the recent trend.

There was a case of a recent National event where a controversial Chief Arbiter was "appointed" by MCF and some other States were concerned about fairness. And then I was informed that this Chief Arbiter put down conditions that he did not want the State Association to appoint a Tournament Director since this means that he could be over-ruled in the event of a dispute over the running of the event.

So lets consider this case a little more carefully. The State Association running this event was not only the organiser but also the sponsor of the event. This means they pay the bills. They pay the Arbiter his fees. That simply means they call the shots as far as appointments go. The only jurisdiction the Chief Arbiter has is in the technical ruling of the Tournament itself. He has no other power. And certainly not to object to the appointment of the Tournament Director.

An aside. It has been my observation in recent events that some State Associations have taken it upon themselves to do all the keying in of results as well as execute the pairings of their Tournaments. I can only assume that this means that there are concerns for the reputation of their events despite them paying for those arbiters. Ref: Here. So that means inflated costs.

Perhaps MCF can assist in getting more arbiters without those type of baggages into the system to bring down costs to the State Associations if the trend continues for them to host National/International events.

Simply put, when you pay the bills you are the boss. Within reason of course.

However there is one clear exception. See here.

It was explained to me that a certain person got the sponsorship for the Team to play Myammar chess. Consider this. If you are a sponsor, can you pay for your players to represent the Country? Can you buy the spots? If this is true then does it not lend credence to what this MOE official was talking about? Here.

This is one clear case of when even though you pay the bills for the event, you are not the boss. Chess does not belong to you. Representing the Country cannot and must not be bought. That constitutes fraud to the Chess community and a betrayal of our Country.

Think about it. How can we raise strong players so long as these practices are continued? Where is the incentive to learn to play good chess? Even the State Associations are twisting themselves to try to keep their events clean from the hands of certain Arbiters.

Surely these simple things can be sorted out for the good of the sport. All it needs is a little clear thinking and a little courage.