What is the future of Malaysian chess? (Part 5)

If you have not read the previous posts on this topic, you might might want to read Part 1 ,Part 2 ,Part 3 and Part 4 first.

The MCF council is made up of the President, Deputy President, three Vice-Presidents, Honorary Secretary and Assistant Secretary, Honorary Treasurer and four Committee Members. The council usually meets once a month to discuss pertinent matters, though nowadays I am not sure of the frequency.

The Hon. Secretary does most of the day to day running and leg-work of the MCF affairs. The Secretary have to manage correspondence, arrange council meetings and take minutes and a hundred and one other tasks. The Secretary also have to make a lot of the on-the-spot decisions (hopefully with consultation with the other council members). A good example will be the last minute selection of the last two spots for the 1st Women Masters matches.

In some associations/bodies this is the only full time paid position because of the amount of work required of the secretary. In MCF, the secretary position is given the exalted title of Honorary Secretary, maybe because this is a thankless position and an unpaid one. Nevertheless, this position is the single most important one in the MCF and probably the most powerful.

There is also the issue of conflict of interests. Some council members are chess coaches. For some, it is even the only source of income. Sometimes the member's children are also actively involved in the game. Being in such positions, they are able to exert some influence in their students or children's favour.

I have been around long enough to see many injustice been done to players. A recent example, Lim Yee Weng achieved his final IM norm at the 2008 Malaysian Open and his rating went over 2400. Normally, he should have his title ratified by FIDE at the Dresden Olympiad the same year. But it was not until late 2009 that he was awarded the title by FIDE. Reason being that MCF never submitted an application for him for almost a year. Note: Mok Tze Meng achieved his final norm at the 2009 Malaysian Masters and received the title at the same time as Yee Weng. However, as he later told me, he had to be pro-active and take matters in his own hand. Otherwise he could suffer the same fate as Yee Weng.

If this kind of things happen to our top players, imagine what can happen to our junior players. They are truly at the mercy of organizers and officials. I also used to do chess coaching and over the years I have been told by parents of these kind of abuses.

a) Children of some officials obtained sponsorship to tournaments while they had to pay out of their own pockets.

b) Biased selection

c) Victimization. Read First Gm for confirmation on this.

When I asked these parents why they do not speak up or publicize their experiences, they were reluctant because they were afraid to be branded troublemakers and their children will be subject to further mistreatment. This is also confirmed by First GM in the above link.

It will be detrimental if these our juniors decide to give up on the game due to such reasons.