| Title | Bank Accounts of World Chess Body Closed | |
| Date | Thursday February 15 2018, @10:27AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the Your-Pawn-or-Mine? dept. | ||
Dr. Adrian Siegel, the treasurer of the World Chess Federation (known by the French acronym FIDE) has submitted a letter to the body's executive board and other executives informing it that their bank, UBS, is closing the Federation's bank account. Since 2015 the President of FIDE, Kirsan Ilymzhinov, has been listed on the Office of Foreign Accounts Control sanctions list of the U.S. Treasury for financial support of Syria. According to Dr. Siegel, "...after more than two years of Kirsan Ilyumzhinow's [sic] presence on the sanction list... UBS has announced that they will immediately close our accounts."
Over the past two years there were reports of Mr. Ilymzhinov resigning from the presidency in favor of his vice-president, only to attempt to regain executive control, and dissension on the Executive Board of FIDE over the matter. Allegations of corruption have plagued Mr. Ilymzhinov for some years, but he has been re-elected twice over chess Grandmasters Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov in separate elections. In 2010 he proposed building a chess center at the World Trade Center attack site.
The BBC reports that representatives of Mr. Ilymzhinov have denied the allegations as outrageous and false.
Story at chessbase.com by Macauley Peterson.
Checkmate, baby?
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