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A bolt from the blue just before the year ended, was the news that Congress President, Josef Mrkvicka was withdrawing from the post of ICCF President. The resignation became effective from 1 January 2005 and Deputy President Max Zavanelli (USA) became acting President and head of the Executive Board. The next ICCF Congress will elect a new President of ICCF.
Josef Mrkvicka had served only about 15 months in office and his resignation came as a complete surprise to us. He was always a thorough gentleman; very efficient in all the dealings we had with him for making the arrangements for the ICCF Congress 2004, Mumbai which included meetings in Germany, and all our interaction during the congress.
He was known, among other things, for his fluency in many languages, which enabled his smooth interaction with member countries across the globe. At the Mumbai Congress he even delivered a speech in Hindi!
While the reasons for his resignation are not completely clear, health, work and family reasons have been given. AICCF sends him our best wishes and is happy to note that he continues his activity in ICCF as a player. AICCF also welcomes Acting President Max Zanzevelli to his new responsibilities and wishes every success to ICCF in the future.
ICCF was considering a special meeting of ICCF officials and member country representatives. The meeting would have been held at a suitable location in Europe and would discuss the situation arising out of the resignations of Josef Mrkvicka and Chris Lüeers. This would be an interim meeting before the next ICCF Congress in Argentina. However sufficient votes in favour of such a move were not received. Understandably, it would appear that the member countries would find it difficult to send their representatives to such a meeting in addition to the regular annual Congress. Meanwhile Pedro Hegoburu is taking care of the World Tournament Office and Max Zavanelli is acting President. So all the affairs of ICCF are well looked after for the present.
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Normally we do not write about OTB chess in the AICCF Bulletin. The exception is when there is something we judge to be important or significant nationally or internationally. And rarely would we publish anything about AICF, the All India Chess Federation which is an entirely different body than AICCF, it being only coincidental that the names are similar.
In the early days of AICCF we tried hard to get ourselves recognised by AICF. Mr. V.D.Pandit, then Bulletin Editor wrote several times to Mr. P.T.Ummer Koya, Secretary of AICF. The reply was that as already one Correspondence Chess organisation (CCAI) was affiliated to AICF allowing two of their players to participate in the National ‘B’, it was not possible to allow a second organisation the privilege. Despite the fact that we had many counter arguments to this, Mr. Pandit accepted the decision sportingly. Later we have several times tried to contact AICF on this matter but never got any reply.
The local newspapers have now published the news that the Madras High Court, in an interim injunction have restrained the current Secretary and Treasurer of AICF from performing their duties as office bearers of AICF. The petitions were filed by the State Chess Associations of Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Maharashtra. In another interim order, the court restrained Mr. Koya from acting as representative of the AICF and functioning as the Vice-President of FIDE and Chairman of the Commonwealth Chess Association.
AICCF would not like to make any comment about the allegations being made against Mr. P.T.Ummer Koya and the functioning of AICF’s financial matters. All we would like to say is that we prefer to stay clear of the politics and controversies that seem to surround the OTB version of the game. One of the reasons why our members like to play correspondence chess is because we can stay away from matters external to the chessboard.
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