MEDITERRANEAN

CHESS

ASSOCIATION

 

 

 

 

4th MCA Board Meeting – Tripoli, Libya

 

Present for the meeting held at Al Mahary Hotel, Tripoli, Libya

on Saturday 26th June 2004.

 

Eng. Mohammad Al Gathafi, President – Mediterranean Chess Association

Mr Ali Nihat Yazici, Deputy President – Mediterranean Chess Association

Mr Geoffrey D Borg, General Secretary – Mediterranean Chess Association

 

Invitees :

 

Mr George Makropoulos (Greece) – FIDE Deputy President

Mr Boris Kutin (Slovenia) – Continental President, Europe

Mr Nizar Elhaj (Libya) – Continental President, Africa

 

 

1.      Minutes of last meeting

 

The minutes of the meeting held in Beirut were reviewed and approved by the Board. Lebanon were thanked for the organization of the men and women championships in Beirut last September.

 

 

2.      Review of World Chess Championships organisation, Tripoli, 2004

 

Mr. George Makropoulos thanked Eng Mohammad Al Gathafi for the organization of the WCC in Tripoli, Libya. He said that the tournament was of the highest standards and that the coverage had been excellent all over the world. Despite the expectations of some people the tournament had been excellently planned and executed.

 

Eng Yazici said that the network server and hosting provided by the organizers was excellent and this had permitted the FIDE Press office to upload much more information than was normally usual. This had been reflected in the positive feedback received from places like Chessbase etc..

 

Mr. Geoffrey D Borg said that everybody had performed at the highest levels possible and the tournament was a public relations platform for the organization of future events. The success of the tournament was very clear, since the web-site had catered for the technical level of the games as well as carefully exposing Libya’s touristic and organizational resources.

 

There had been an average of 37,000 unique hits per day over the last few days and over 17 million requests per day. There was no doubt that Libya had carried out the organization with the highest degree of hospitality and professionalism.

 

 

3.      Boys & Girls Junior Championship in Kozan, Adana in Turkey

 

Following the initial proposal by Algeria in September 2003, some problems arose with the hosting of junior championships there since elections were going to be held at the same time as the date of the tournament. Subsequent attempts to get another date proved fruitless.  An e-mail was sent to Board members and some feedback had come through.

 

Eng. Ali Nihat Yazici has generously offered on behalf of the Turkish Chess Federation to host this tournament between the 19th of August 2004 and 28th of August 2004 in Kozan in the province of Adana. The Board unanimously approved the offer and the tournament + regulations will be circulated to all Federations and through the FIDE WCC web-site.

 

 

4.      MCA Men & Women Championships

 

Mr Geoffrey D Borg said that similar to the Junior Championships, last year, the MCA had finalized arrangements with Syria to organize the Men & Women Individual Championships in Lattakia. Unfortunately due to a change in Federation Presidency, we will need to re-establish a relationship with the new Syrian Federation.

 

Some contacts had been made with Morocco but it appeared that nothing could be committed to at this point in time. Greece had also been considering something but nothing clear since there were a number of European Club Cups and Youth Championships being held there.

 

Eng. Ali Nihat Yazici then generously offered to host the MCA Individual Championships in late November along with the Balkan Championships in Istanbul. More details of this tournament will be provided over the next few months. He invited Eng Mohammad Al Gathafi to honour the tournament with his presence.

 

Mr Boris Kutin said that he had had contact with Levacic in Cannes, France and they had appeared interested in organising something together with the MCA. Mr Kutin was to further discussions for events during 2005.

5.      MCA Internet Championship

 

Mr Geoffrey Borg said that Internet championships were growing rapidly in popularity. The cost of these tournaments was relatively low and focused on prize money mainly as there were no logistical costs.

 

Eng Mohammad asked about what controls are exercised to ensure the ethical standards required in normal tournaments and Mr George Makropoulos said that whilst there were certain techniques, in principle the Internet was a huge vehicle to promote chess.

 

Eng Ali Nihat Yazici then said that with the way bandwidth was developing, it would be possible to ensure that games would be captured via web-cam and this would serve as an element of control.

 

 

6.      Training camps

 

A number of ideas were espoused with the main thrust being on the provision of training to North African countries or weaker Federations in the Mediterranean. This could take the role of either training trainers to have a wider base and also training camps for juniors to encourage cultural exchange between the Mediterranean countries as well as technical improvement.

 

 

7.      MCA Meeting, Calvia – Mallorca, October 2004

 

It was agreed that despite the 5th Board meeting planned for Istanbul next November, the MCA Member Federation countries should still meet up at Calvia during the Olympiad.

 

This would give the MCA Board members present the opportunity to work with those countries that were finding it difficult to participate in MCA events such as Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina.

 

 

8.      Other matters

 

Eng. Mohammad Al Gathafi then visited the tournament hall where he viewed some of the games, the press center where he looked at the internet setup and finally the FIDE secretariat. A press conference was also held where the plans for the MCA over the next few months were summarized.

 

 

Geoffrey D Borg

General Secretary