Where did our money go?
17 April 2007 19:27 PM
The European Championships in Dresden was quite succesful from an organisational point of view. Unfortunately ChessVibes had to report about some negative points as well. And we have to add one more. Today we received an open letter by one of the participants, GM Erik van den Doel. He and other players were very disappointed about the hotel food and after doing some math, they are confused about part of the money they paid for accomodation.
This is a story about the disappearance of money
During the European Chess Championships in Dresden I stayed at the IBIS hotel. The European Chess Union had made the participants an offer: Full board in a single room in the IBIS hotel during 14 nights for 98 euros a night. Payment could not be done directly to the hotel; the national federations had to transfer the money to the bank account of the European Chess Union (ECU). The ECU would then pay IBIS. This is an important point to understand what happened. Many players made use of this arrangement - of the Dutch Chess Federation GM Tiviakov, GM Smeets, GM Werle and myself opted for it.
Lunch and dinner in the hotel were extremely poor. Both in terms of quality and quantity. Our complaints to the waiters did not have any effect. After about seven days I spoke to the cook. He told me he couldn’t change the situation since he had been ordered to prepare meals for the players for a value of five euros. And indeed five euros average seems like a good indication for what we got, although it could also have been less.
Now it was time for some calculation. We paid 98 euros. The normal rate for a single room including breakfast (which could, for example, be found on a billboard next to the entrance) is 70,50 euros. 98 - 70,50 = 27,50 euros left for lunch and dinner. Lunch and dinner together had a value of 10 euros so 27,50 - 10 = 17,50 euros per person per day disappeared! That is 245 euros per person for the whole stay.
By now we had grown very curious about how much ECU had actually paid IBIS. The manager of IBIS refused to tell us, saying this was something between the players and the organisers. Then I spoke with the organiser in charge of these matters, Mr Verleger. He also refused to tell me. One gets the impression there was something to hide.
I think the national federations whose players stayed in the IBIS should claim a decent refund from ECU.
Furthermore, in the future national federations should transfer money directly to hotels and not through ECU, or any other organisation. And if they must, they should ask for written guarantees /specifications where the money will go. Otherwise history may well repeat itself, for example during the 2008 Olympiad, in Dresden…
GM Erik van den Doel
Leiden
Holland
Yes van den Doel is right to start this discussion. The organizers probably made even more profit because they probably negotiated a price of 40 or 50 euros per night not 70. Just one thing Van den Doel forgets to factor in the salary of the cook and waiters and the rent of the room, although that is probably not significant. But in general he’s right, the organizers are in to make a big profit in Dresden! Van den Doel should not just have asked that the organizers refund the leftover for lunch, but they should not run tournaments to make profits!! They should show all their calculations and it should not be that they make profits on the back of the poor GM’s who have to go and play those tournaments and spend too much for hotel and food. It’s unfair the organizers make money on their backs. In all future tournaments GM’s (players) should ask the organizers to prove how much they pay to hotels for accomodation and food before forcing the players to pay a third party.
OMG, and us mortal chessplayers naively thinking only FIDE is run by scoundrels!
That doesn’t seem like an unreasonable markup. That 5 euro is the budget they have to buy the ingredients. Restaurants work that way. If they can’t make any profit why stay in business. They have to pay personnel, the room etc. If you’re not happy with a meal ask for a refund.
That is if the price for a room wasn’t negotiated by the organisation, they could have got a bargain (or at least they should) in which case some money went in the wrong pocket indeed.
I don’t think they should have gone public with this just yet.
Forgot to add:
5 euro is actually quite an acceptable budget, especially for lunch. A restaurant with good suppliers should be able to get quite a good meal for that amount, the bigger the restaurant the easier.
Wees blij dat je kan schaken. Helemaal in het super Dresden. Als je zo schaakt als je schrijft doe je maar mee aan het Oliebollen toernooi.
Ohne Holland fahren wir zur EM, ohne Holland farn wir zur EM
Wrang verhaal. Maar had een nare ervaring niet achterwege kunnen blijven door het gedane aanbod op internet te checken. Elk opererend hotel heeft toch een actuele site. Schrik niet van de werkelijke prijs, via bijgaande link
http://www.hotels-pensionen-online.de/seiten/sachsen/cl/hotel-ibis/dresden/deutsch/1024×768/seiten/frameset.htm
Het is nogal zoeken daarna. De link naar de prijzen is deze. Het gaat dus om 61 euro!?
Als je naar het boekingssysteem gaat, kun je kiezen of je ontbijt wilt of niet. Ik denk daarom dat de genoemde 61 Euro de minimumprijs is, dwz. exclusief ontbijt. Dan betaalde een EK-ganger dus 37 Euro voor 3 maaltijden.
Dat geneuzel over die maaltijden …
De ecu heeft een deal met dat hotel en daar goed aan verdiend; dat lijkt me duidelijk. Misschien hebben ze daar de prijzen mee gefinancierd, of anders gaan ze misschien het schaken stimuleren op basisscholen in Lutjebroek en Pijnacker.
Dat zou inderdaad een goede besteding zijn, Pieter, maar daarmee is de kous niet af. De kern van het probleem is natuurlijk dat de ECU niet communiceert over het geld dat ze verdient, en waaraan het wordt besteed. En dat mag je van een bond wel verwachten.
Zoals men placht te zeggen: ‘als je niks hebt te verbergen, het je er ook geen moeite mee om dingen te openbaren’ Sterker nog, je toont het met een glimlach om mensen gerust te stellen en het schijnt dat je er zelf ook beter van slaapt
Bestaat de Europeese schaakbond. Je zou wel verwachten dat je er af en toe van hoordt, maar je weet meer van de FIDE dan van die charlatans. Het lijt me juist afhankelijk van de regio dat je steeds minder hoordt hoe hoger je komt. Blijkbaar hebben ze meer aandacht voor de GM’s, dan voor de eerlijke huis,tuin en keukenschakers… Misschien hebben de organisatorren geen genoeg sponsors???
It is typical for the German Schachbund. The players on the base are very unhappy with our organisation.
And what is about the Qualification-Places, which went (during the tournament!) from 33 suddenly only to 29?
I am very ashamed about our whole German Chessorganisation, they are too old and too long in their jobs (for exsample Horst Metzing, who is paid very well from our money and is doing only things, to hold himself in the job but he is not doing something which is good for chess itself). He also works for FIDE…so you can see who is washing whos hands.
Thanks to claims in the past nobody was forced to take the IBIS offer. Even with normal lunch and dinner the price was obviously too high. Dresden provides lots of good hotels (**** for 40€) or private flats (starting with 25€). So there remains enough money for foot. For me it was a high quality and still cheap tournament. Cheaper than Pardubice…
Although this is certainly not related to the bad food in Dresden, it might perhaps be interesting:
According to the Newspaper FAZ Dresden’s prosecutor started to investigate against the cheforganizer of the Dresden olympiad 2008 Dr. Dirk Jordan. See also http://www.kinderschach.net (German).
Eean aantal grootmesters heeft blijkbaar een track-record om slechte logis the vinden. Je hoort toch wel regelmatig klachten van onze GMs. Niet te geloven! 4 GM betalen voor 12 nachten a 98€ ruim 4.800€ (!!!) Beter huur je een vakantiehuis for 500-1000€, bijkommend zo’n 500 € openbaar vervoer en voor de rest geniet je van de goeie restaurants in Dresden en omgeving. Of gebruik het geld om een eigen kok te betalen, da’s nogal goedkoper dan 4.800€ in IBIS.
Ik denk dat de Nederlandse twee gidsen aan zijn grootmeesters zal verlenen.
1) Economisch denken
2) De beste vakantiehuizen ter wereld!
The naivete astonishes me. Profit? Do the people who have posted not realise that the European Championship costs money to run, including the prizes, venue and staffing.
What I said at an earlier ECU Meeting when this matter came up concerning the charging in Turkey, is that it is simply a matter of transparency.
The organizers are hiding the true entry fee for the players by hiding the sum the player pays for the hotel and food minus the sum the organizers pay. If this were open there would be few quarrels.
Eating at the same hotel for two weeks is foolishness anyway. Your chess will improve if sometimes you go out.
Stewart Reuben
Natuurlijk is er altijd wel iets aan te merken bij deelname aan een groot toernooi. Wel een leermoment ! Voortaan gewoon van te voren een vergelijk maken van kosten en het aanbod. Dan blijft er meer tijd over om van het schaken te genieten!