Source: Chessdom

To European Federations and delegates

6 August 2010
Dear Delegates,
After the announcement of my ticket to run at the forthcoming ECU elections in Khanty-Mansiysk all my team members have contacted or met a lot of representatives of the European chess federations. We have received a lot of support and we have realised that there is a profound need for a real change in ECU as well as in FIDE.
Most of my ticket members are involved in Anatoly Karpov’s campaign for FIDE President. He knows about the importance of Europe for FIDE and for the international chess activities. We therefore have agreed that Europe should benefit from the financial package Anatoly offers for the next 4 years. If he wins and if my team will get elected, Europe will receive a total amount of 1,2 Mio US$, that means 300,000 US$ per year. We will spend this money directly for European federations or regions.
In our mission statement we had already mentioned our support for Anatoly Karpov’s campaign for FIDE President and our aim to bring in sustainable sponsorship. As you can see, this intention may very well materialize.
We do not have too much time until the elections in Khanty-Mansiysk. But this period should be used by all my ticket members to build up closer relations to all federations. We should know what your problems are, whether we can help you and what you expect us to do in the future. We know that because of the holiday season it will not be easy to have a permanent exchange of opinion. But anyway, if you have any questions, please contact us.
You can easily reach us by email:
Robert von Weizsäcker praesident@schachbund.de
Nigel Short nigelshort@gmail.com
Ivan Sokolov sokolovivan@hotmail.com
Johann Hjartarson johann.hjartarson@decode.is
Yuri Kaplun yuri931@gmail.com
or via Horst Metzing at the office of the German Chess Federation info@schachbund.de
Best regards,
Robert von Weizsäcker