CAS/TAS decides in favor of ECU, the Turkish Chess Federation to appeal

CAS/TAS decides in favor of ECU, the Turkish Chess Federation to appeal

CAS/TAS has a decision on the TCS vs ECU court case. The battle started back in October, when the Turkish Chess Federation has started legal procedures against ECU in the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport). The main reason is mishandling of 2013 events bids and the procedures for naming the bid winners.

TCF has made 3 bids for 2013 events which were submitted to ECU on June 30th this year: the European Club Cup (Antalya), the European Youth Chess Championship (Urgup), and the European Senior Team Championship.

The European Club Cup was awarded to Rhodes, Greece, and is not disputed, however, the other two competitions are going to be questioned on procedural errors and mishandling of bidding procedure rules by ECU.

The appeal of the Turkish Chess Federation was filed for:

1. ECU’s decision to award the 2013 European Youth Chess Championship to Budva, Montenegro without making proper bid evaluation

2. The refusal to award TCF the 2013 Senior Team Championship despite having won the evaluation, and the postponment for the decision for the General Assembly

Today the decision of the CAS/TAS was made public. The Appeal filed by the Turkish Chess Federation was dismissed, while the decisions made by the European Chess Union Board were accepted as valid.

The President of the Turkish Chess Federation sent a press release, stating:

We have got the result of CAS Court case yesterday (TCF versus ECU). Turkish Chess Federation criticized the evaluation of the bids for European Youth Chess Championship 2013 and European Senior Team Championship 2013. TCF in particular claimed that the inspector refused to take into consideration the documents provided by TFC in addition to the bid form and made an arbitrary evaluation of the bids. This fact had been accepted by ECU and their witnesses. The panel of CAS first refused to appoint an expert to examine this evaluation and secondly considered that the inspector was authorised to only consider the content of the bid form without the schedules.

After the decision TCF considers that there are practically no ways to have an evaluation of an inspector examined by an independent jurisdiction and is also disappointed of the change due to the new statutes of ECU from civil judge to an arbitration court.

TCF analyses with its lawyer the decision and the opportunity of an appeal.

Very soon we will inform the chess world. We will not give up to find the justice for European Chess!

Best regards,

Ali Nihat YAZICI

President of TCF