As you may know, the FIDE Candidates tournament took place in Toronto in April. The tournament brought together the top challengers on the open and women's category to play in a double round robin tournament with the winners of tournament going on to challenge for World Championship (Open and Women). The tournament was organized by FIDE with the assistance of a Canadian Organizing Committee and various individuals from around the world. The CFC came to their assistance when they needed it most.
I was asked to engage as part of the local organizing committee that included Aris Marghetis, Salim Belcadi, and Anna Burtasova. I was asked to be the public face of the CFC, taking a largely ceremonial role and also eventually writing letters of invitation for all of the individuals that needed them. With the tournament starting in early April, in late January none of the key individuals (including players and organizers and dignitaries) yet had visas. In February we started meeting regularly with FIDE officials on Zoom most notably Pavel Tregubov, Maria Balashova, and Emil Sutovsky.
Anna Burtasova contacted various outlets and got interviews for me with the Toronto Star (where I wound up talking to multiple reporters which resulted in multiple articles), the CBC, and Bell Media most notably during the one week period in early March when we didn't have any of the visas. Gary Gladstone was instrumental in getting attention with his government and political contacts and we had a great deal of help from most of the executive but in particular Patricia Gamliel a very high profile lawyer who is very knowledgeable in the ins and outs of the immigration system and was able to demystify the process for everyone involved who was very helpful in shepherding this process. For most of us the immigration system is a black box which is very mysterious. Patricia provided understanding and guidance.
We did a lot of things, contacting many members of parliament and talking to people who were chess parents present and in the past and there was some redundancy because there were at least three threads that would have led us to the critical people that eventually got this over the finish line. The Canadian Chess community was (mostly) great though there were some people who took it on themselves to try to drill holes in the boat. I dealt with them at the time. I got particularly angry at attacks upon Patricia Gamliel and myself who were after all acting in the capacity of volunteers. There is still a group of malcontents who consciously or unconsciously want the CFC to fail and seem hurt and offended when we succeed.
I will quote from my chess.com post.
The Canadian government and the immigration authorities were reasonable throughout all of this. There wasn't any political agenda that I observed. The media campaign launched on X (formerly twitter) worked. We got confirmation from an insider in the government that it was working and that we should keep it up. I did multiple interviews with the Toronto Star with three different reporters. They did a great job of reporting what I said. I did an interview at 11 pm on the Friday March 1st with BellMedia and they did a good job of reporting our conversation. Finally I did a television interview with the CBC which aired on Sunday Night and they played the conversation where I conveyed what I wanted conveyed.
FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky, GM Pavel Tregubov, Maria Balashova and Anna Burtasova at FIDE distinguished themselves throughout this process.
Aris Marghetis is going to be a great chief arbiter for this event. Salim Belcadi has been handling much of the local details.
Patricia Gamliel our CFC board member who has worked as a lawyer in the field of immigration for almost thirty years worked tirelessly and contacted many individuals who assisted us on our journey. Without her I am not sure that we would be where we are now. She and Lyle Craver our CFC board secretary contacted Minister Jonathan Wilkinson on or around February 29th which resulted in him forwarding the information to his colleagues in the immigration department. Patricia and I also contacted Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller separately. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich promptly provided us with letters for numerous Members of Parliament and Ministers. We contacted the Ministers for Tourism and the Ministers for Sport and Physical Activity and they forwarded what we sent to them to the immigration authorities. Our newest board member Veronica Hitchlock (woman's coordinator) also organized the presidents of multiple university chess clubs across Canada to send a very well written letter to the Honourable Minister Marc Miller. CFC Vice President Olga Mushtaler also put us in contact with an immigration consultant who talked to Patricia Gamliel and offered suggestions for us.
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky applied to Minister Marc Miller and received a meeting on Thursday March 7 with some very high officials in the immigration department. The officials indicated that they were well aware of the situation due to submission of documents from Minister Wilkinson and promised to do their best. I believe that by the time of the meeting we already had all the player visas.
Gary Gladstone a chess player and a chess parent and also a person who ran for parliament for Liberals in the Thornhill riding made extensive use of his contacts and friends which reached into multiple government departments including that of the Honorable Minister Miller and including some of the high officials in the meeting with the FIDE CEO Emil. He also put us in contact with the Member of Parliament Kevin Vuong, an independent who represents the riding where the tournament is to be held. MP Kevin Vuong played a key role early on getting us information on the progress of the visa applications and deserves great credit for his work.
There were many dozens of people who contacted us and their MPs on our behalf offering help and encouragement. Every time I asked for help I got it. At some point, I will write down and publish the full story with all the names attached. Here you got the condensed version.
Another chess parent who wants to remain nameless contacted a friend in the government who told us that the publicity campaign was working and to keep it up. That friend in the government indicated that we would get our player visas the day before we did.
Did someone drop the ball to provoke this crisis which caused multiple people in the CFC to lose sleep and live in a state of constant anxiety for two weeks? They did. It was not someone in the CFC. It was not someone at FIDE. We still have to do an investigation to get to the bottom of it. Someone may have bitten off more than they could chew and some extreme and massive action had to be undertaken to pull our fat out of the fire. Fortunately we had capable people in place who were able to do this. It did not occur without a cost. Hopefully as we move back to our normal routines and start sleeping and exercising at our usual frequency those costs particularly the physical cost of being part of this influence operation will fade.
In the midst of this I went to a short online seminar with Robert Cialdini the author of multiple books on the subject of Influence. He described what you had to do to influence people in this type of situation. Every step that he outlined we had already done.
We successfully climbed Everest figuratively speaking when faced with an almost impossible situation. A band of heroes accomplished the mission. Some people who had little to do with the final outcome climbed a small hill in Appalachia and declared their enormous contribution to the cause. It was irritating to the people who actually made a difference.
Last edited by Vladimir Drkulec; 06-23-2024 at 09:37 AM.
After the visas were issued, there was less work for me, though I still had some duties as the President of the Chess Federation at the opening and closing ceremonies and a Olympiad torch ceremony for FIDE’s 100 year anniversary in downtown Toronto in the middle weekend (which was not part of the original plan but actually worked out so that I was able to attend), though traffic was a big issue due to construction and accidents. The outdoor event was a bit cold and windy but entertaining as Vishy Anand took on Qiyu Zhou who now seems to go by her online alias Nemo and seems to be everywhere including this month's New In Chess and often on chess.com.
In each of the ceremonies, I was asked to say a few words, where I thanked the sponsors (the Scheinberg family) and FIDE along with the many volunteers that made this event such a success. I knew that no one was there to hear me talk, so beyond covering the essentials, I turned the microphone over to the more significant players.
CFC Secretary
5A-1 The FIDE Candidates Tournament (April 2024)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote