It’s less than three weeks before roughly 2000 players from 181 nations arrive in Tromsø for the 41st Chess Olympiad. Financing was for a long time a major problem for the organisers, but the Norwegian Government eventually agreed to additional funding that meant the chess event of the year could go ahead as planned. With a record number of federations signed up, however, a new problem has arisen: providing visas for all the players, delegates and visitors.
by Tarjei J. Svensen
A visa for Norway for the Chess Olympiad enables the holder to travel freely around the 26 countries included in the Schengen Agreement | photo: Flickr, megoizzy (adapted)
Once again the World Chess Federation (FIDE) revealed its fondness for open letters. On July 7th they published a letter from FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to the Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg concerning participants from an unknown number of nations who are yet to obtain a Schengen visa for Norway.
The FIDE Secretariat has been receiving a considerable amount of letters of complaint from the Federations which are unable to bear huge expenses of 15 persons travelling to another country (within the African continent, for example, or from Syria to another country).
According to Ilyumzhinov, “this has no precedents in FIDE history or in any other sport”, and the president used the opportunity to attack the Norwegian organisers yet again by saying, “no one from the organisers’ side has ever mentioned such a possibility”. He concluded:
Your Excellency, I am approaching you with the request to use your authority to instruct relevant Norwegian institutions to find a way for solving the problem and avoiding a worldwide chaos [sic].
The CEO of the Tromsø Chess Olympiad, Børge Robertsen, responded to FIDE’s concerns in a letter published on the official website, where he said the organisers were aware of the situation and working hard to resolve it.
Robertsen gave some interesting insights and explained what Ilyumzhinov failed to mention in his letter – the cause of the situation:
In the summer of 2013 an agreement was implemented in the Schengen countries regarding the exchange of biometric data. This is an unalterable requirement agreed by the Schengen nations, not a special Norwegian regulation.
This means that one must appear at a Norwegian embassy to supply fingerprints. If Norway does not have an official office in a country, then one must go to the closest country with Norwegian ambassadorial representation. We fully understand that this is extremely frustrating if, for example, you are from Gambia and need to travel to Ghana to get a Norwegian visa.
Since this Schengen rule was introduced in 2013 it’s not clear if any major FIDE events have been affected… until now. Robertsen asks that any know-how can be shared:
The FIDE President writes in his letter that Schengen nations have previously been granted exemption from this regulation. We have tried to find out how, but have not learned how this was done or who has achieved this earlier. This information would be extremely helpful for us.
The Norwegian media also picked up on Ilyumzhinov’s letter. In an article by VG, the President of the Norwegian Chess Federation apologised for the situation:
I can understand the frustration of the FIDE president. We are working with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but I believe we should accept some criticism here. That we were caught off-guard shows what a big event this has become. We should have sounded the warning sooner.
The President of the Norwegian Chess Federation has started well in the ongoing Norwegian Championship. Here he is playing blitz in Oslo a few weeks ago | photo: Tarjei J. Svensen
Veslemøy Salvesen, Press Officer for the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, denied that the Norwegian visa rules are any more difficult than for the other 25 countries in the Schengen Area, where internal borders have been abolished. In a follow-up story by VG, she was quoted as saying:
New Schengen rules have been introduced that mean everyone must submit fingerprints before they can get a visa. This requires applicants applying for the first time to personally submit fingerprints to the Schengen database. It’s not possible to create special rules for big events or similar.
Ilyumzhinov claims Norway doesn’t allow people to “collect visas from other Schengen countries” which have embassies in an applicant’s country. Salvesen denies that’s that case:
That’s incorrect. Where we have no representation we’ve made deals with the embassies of other countries so that applicants can submit biometric data there.
Salvesen adds, however:
But this doesn’t apply for all the world’s countries. There are, for example, a few exceptions in Africa.
Salvesen understands FIDE’s concern regarding travel costs in case a player needs to travel abroad in order to obtain a Norwegian visa and gives her assurance that they are trying to resolve the situation “as smoothly as possible”. Asked why no exception is being made for big sporting events, as happened many times in the past, Salvesen responded:
Since the new Schengen rules were introduced last year we haven’t been able to do that.
Salvesen says that the Norwegian Prime Minister has brought up the matter with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Børge Brende, but with only 20 days until the start of Round 1 in Tromsø the time left to obtain visas is very limited.
On the same day the open letter was released FIDE also published a report on their last inspection before the Olympiad begins. The report addresses some issues that FIDE still isn’t satisfied with, including a lack of accommodation for accompanying persons, space to hang things in hotels, tables for the chief arbiters and lighting in the playing hall.
The main issue, however, seems to be the “€100 admin fee” that was introduced by the organisers:
FIDE still does not accept the €100 charge for Transportation that the Organisers did not include in their initial bid. The Organisers claim it is necessary because of there being more teams than expected.
When chess24 spoke to Aulin-Jansson at the end of May he said the fee was absolutely necessary and they would retain it despite FIDE’s position.
In an interview with VG, he said:
FIDE claims we included no charges in our bid, but we claim we did include the charge. This is the same as they had during the Olympiad two years ago.
It’s unlikely this is the final word on that story, although it’s also unclear what FIDE can do if they don’t reach an agreement with Tromsø on the issue. In any case, despite the inevitable problems faced by any big sporting event one thing remains clear – the Tromsø 2014 Chess Olympiad will go ahead as planned. Preparations are well underway!
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