President IDF Vladimir Langin sent a letter to the national federations and the website address in response to a letter from President FMJD Harry Otten to members of FMJD.
“I received a letter from FMJD President Harry Otten, some of the statements I would like to clarify. Immediately I say I’m not going to hold a debate with the representative of the organization, developing other sport – draughts-100.
First of all, let me remind you history of the issue. Since its foundation, the FMJD Section-64 (Russian/Brazilian) was organizationally and financially independent of the FMJD. Therefore, all the achievements in the development of draughts-64 in the World have a very indirect relation to FMJD.
In 2012, the FMJD Section-64 member federations have created the International Draughts Federation for the best development and advancement of draughts-64 in the World. At the Section-64 General Assembly in 2012 national federations of countries, developing draughts-64, entrusted IDF to represent Section-64 in the FMJD and recognized IDF as legitimate successor of the FMJD Section-64 (Russian/Brazilian).
This means that the IDF is the guardian and continuer of centuries-old history of draughts-64, its traditions and achievements, including the history of the FMJD Section-64 (Russian/Brazilian).
After the illegal electronic voting on the division of the Section-64 to Russian and Brazilian sections with the help of countries not developing draughts-64, and the adoption by the FMJD General Assembly in October 2015 of a new discriminatory statute, declaring priority of draughts-100 within FMJD, Section 64 (Russian/Brazilian) withdrew from the FMJD and operates independently under the brand of the IDF.
The IDF raised the conducting of the World Championships on an unprecedented level. World Championships in 2013, 2015 and European Championship in 2014 were held in Russian and Brazilian versions of draughts-64 at a high organizational level and with a big prize funds. The planned European Championship in 2016 and World Championship in 2017 will be hold with the big prize funds and will include programs for Brazilian and Russian versions of draughts-64. Annually, there are 6-7 World Cup stages, and 4-5 of it includes programs in Brazilian draughts.
At the same time, beginning in the illegal electronic voting for the separation of the Section-64 up to date, the so-called “FMJD Brazilian section” held ZERO of competitions in Brazilian version of draughts-64! So what was the point of this division?
Not words, but real deeds speak that IDF is the leading global organization that develops draughts-64. More than 50 countries of the five continents are already the IDF members, World Championships was attended by players from over 50 countries, and the prize money reached the level of 60 000 euros. In 2015 the IDF was adopted in TAFISA, the second in influence and importance sports organization in the World after the International Olympic Committee. In 2016, for the first time in history, the game of draughts will be represented in the TAFISA World Games with tournament in draughts-64.
Organizer of so-called “FMJD World Championship” Lelio Marcos from Brazil is a person well known to everyone. We have still alive memories of how he ripped off the World Championship in draughts-100, and many players have lost serious money already spent on tickets. Everybody knows that in recent years he tries to harm to the Section-64, and later to the IDF, that he prohibits the Brazilian players to participate in draughts-64 World Championships, publicly insults respected leaders of the draughts community, such as the chairman of BFSH Irina Pashkevich. Holding by this person of amateur competition among private individuals and his friends under the sonorous name of “World Championship” discredits our sport and makes the direct harm to the development of draughts-64 in the World.
Currently IDF is a strong, well-organized international federation, with significant and stable funding, does a lot for the development of draughts-64 in the World, and spends big, in draughts standards, finances for organizing competitions and participation in it of players from different countries.
The IDF Board decided: in the case of participation of individual players in such “championships”, organized by different organizations and not sanctioned by the IDF, these players will not be able in the future to take part in any competitions held by the IDF or under the aegis of the IDF.
This decision of the IDF made not for the struggle with competitors, we count holding such “world championships” as direct and intentional infliction of harm to the reputation of draughts-64 in the World, a continuation of the FMJD attempts to “rock the boat”, to split and weaken draughts-64.
Separately I want to tell about invokes of Mr. Otten to vote a certain way on our General Assembly. Since the Section-64 left the FMJD we behaved maximum discreet, avoiding aggressive statements against it, even though that the FMJD has an unpaid duty to us. But in response we received new attempts to interfere in the activities of our organization. In this regard, I will say the following.
The FMJD aggressive policy aimed at promoting only one game at the expense of others has already led to the split in the FMJD and the allocation of draughts-64 unit into an independent organization. However, the FMJD Board made no conclusions from this devastating for the FMJD image event.
It is better to the FMJD Board not to try to initiate a conflict with us once again. We believe that the FMJD should focus on holding of competitions in draughts-100, which is enshrined in its statutes by the General Assembly of 2015, not interfering in our activities, just like we do not think (at least until we are not forced to do this) to conducting competitions in draughts-100 .
Time has proved that the IDF chose the right course of development, as for the federation, and as for draughts-64 in the World. I am confident that we can achieve a lot more still with your support.“
