BBC ignores World Chess Federation’s anti-discrimination efforts

No BBC follow-up on a story it reported a year ago.

In December 2017 the BBC News website reported that:

“An international chess tournament is starting in Saudi Arabia amid controversy after Israeli players were denied visas.

A Saudi official said visas could not be granted because the kingdom had no diplomatic ties with Israel.

The Israeli Chess Federation said it would seek financial compensation. […]

The Israeli chess body said it was led to believe its players would be allowed to attend, despite the two countries not having diplomatic relations.

It has accused Saudi Arabia of misleading the World Chess Federation so that it would be selected to host the tournament.”

Some follow-up to that story recently emerged.

“The governing body for international chess confirmed Monday that an upcoming tournament that was to be held for the second year in Saudi Arabia has been relocated to Russia because of the kingdom’s policies, which exclude some eligible players.

Two Israeli chess players had appealed to the FIDE chess federation over concerns they would be prevented from playing at the World Rapid and Blitz tournament, as they were last year when Saudi authorities refused to grant them visas to enter the kingdom.

“The Championships were moved from Saudi Arabia to Russia due to the policy adopted by Saudi organizers,” FIDE director general Emil Sutovsky told The Times of Israel in an email. […]

“The new leadership of FIDE made it clear that FIDE will no longer stage its official events in the countries that deny entry visa and fair treatment to all the eligible players,” Sutovsky wrote. “However, officials in Riyadh could not guarantee an entry to representatives of all the national federations who had a right to participate in the event.

“That is why, after all the attempts have failed, we took a decision to relocate the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships to Russia, in spite of the generous financial offer made by Saudi Arabia,” Sutovsky, himself an Israeli chess grand master, wrote. “We will stick to this policy, and make sure that chess players from any country will not be banned from participation in the official events, based on their nationality, ethnicity, race or gender.””

That news concerning the efforts of the governing body of international chess to combat discrimination does not currently appear on the BBC News website’s ‘Chess’ page.

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