“The US tournaments are three days only and are not sanctioned by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs, or World Chess Federation) thus the quality of competition is not that high," said NCFP executive director Willie Abalos.
Pichay earlier asked members of the national men and women teams to compete in two FIDE-sanctioned events in the Philippines – the 6th Pichay Cup and the 1st Florencio Campomanes Memorial Cup – since top GMs will compete in both tournaments.
The Pichay Cup is ongoing while the Campomanes Cup opens on Saturday.
Abalos added that they had already asked Antonio to return immediately so he could compete in the Campomanes Cup or else lose his spot in the national team.
More in NCFP plans to drop GM Antonio from RP chess team.
OK, maybe I'm missing something here, maybe the players have some sort of contract with the NCFP that requires them to do as they're told. But in the absence of such a formal agreement, isn't Antonio, as are all other players I imagine, a free agent?
7 comments:
They are not free to play in the Malaysian Open, because Malaysia is supporting Karpov. Maybe Antonio was intending to play there next week and this is a coded warning.
Whilst the Philipines support for Kirsan is really quite shocking, I actually think that the federation is quite right to make that request.
3 day tournaments are a joke. If a player is to be paid for taking part in the olympiad, he might as well stick to a minimal tournament schedule.
Perfectly reasonable. It's got nothing to do with politics.
Yes...Its all about politic.. read the article about players "ban" from playing the 2010 Malaysian Open by GM Ian Rogers...
http://www.echo.net.au/node/78792
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/199794/antonio-out-of-rp-team-to-chess-olympiad-asian-games
The National Chess Federation Philippines (NCFP) headed by president Prospero Pichay has decided to drop Grandmaster Rogelio “Joey" Antonio from the national team bound for the World Chess Olympiad and Asian Games.
This after Antonio caught the ire of the NCFP officials after the veteran campaigner reportedly snubbed the two major chess tournament hosted in the country – the 6th Pichay Cup and the 1st Florencio Campomanes Memorial Cup at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium.
“Definitely, we will sanction him. Discipline is important for a national player and we will not tolerate players who are prima donnas," said Pichay.
Antonio, who is the country’s board two player, however opted to go to the US to compete in a series of weekend tournaments.
He won his first competition held in California and is slated to return on September 9.
In a statement, Antonio said that the NCFP president approved his trip by signing the letter of endorsement which he forwarded to the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) for financial support.
“Yes, I signed the letter intended for the PSC, but it doesn’t mean that he was given the go signal to miss the two major events in the country. We already had the order that national players must take part in at least one tournament, either the Pichay Cup or the Campomanes Cup," explained Pichay.
“His action shows that he is not serious in joining the team," added Pichay, explaining the fact that the two international tournaments being held in the country offers tougher competition compared to the US events Antonio opted to join.
Antonio’s replacement will be known after the Campomanes Cup as the NCFP will evaluate local players seeing action in the tournament held in honor of the grand old man of Philippine Chess.
GMs Wesley So, John Paul Gomez, Darwin Laylo and Asia’s first garndmaster Eugene Torre, are the members of the team that will see action in the 39th Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia from September 21 to October 3 and the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou China this November.
Given that all the Federations were told that their players had to be registered before July, and that no changes would be allowed after this date it looks like The Philippines will only be taking 4 players to the Olympiad.
The Philippines, thankfully, is one of the political superpowers in world chess. Those guys in the NCFP are well-connected, so I think they're covered.
- TCG
Ah, soft corruption. Terrible when the other guy does it, not so bad when it benefits you ...
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