Dear Members,

The General Assembly and Extraordinary General Assembly of the ACP took place from 15 to 22 March 2021.
All the Premium and Standard Members for 2020 and 2021 had the right to vote both in the Assembly.
 
The voting was conducted via a specially designed page by the ACP and it included several questions.
 
There were 21 Premium and Standard members who participated in the votes. Here is how they voted:

Dear Colleagues,

Year 2020 was a challenging one for chess, to say the least. For the majority of its duration our game lost its over-the-board tournaments and moving online had its own share of troubles.

The beginning was bright though. ACP secured special conditions and prizes for its Premium Members at the Gibraltar Open held in January. We also signed a Letter of Understanding with ECU to have 5 prizes (1000 eur each) for our Premiums at the European Individial Championships (open and women).

Baskaran Adhiban
Aleksej Aleksandrov
Cemil Can Ali Marandi
Bassem Amin
Mikhail Al. Antipov
David Anton Guijarro
Ketevan Arakhamia-Grant
Ulvi Bajarani
Mateusz Bartel
Bojana Bejatovic
Anastasia Bodnaruk
Marina Brunello
Agnieszka Brustman
Irina Bulmaga
Patricia Claros Aguilar
Aleksandar Colovic
Pia Cramling
Francesco De Sio
Anton Demchenko
Aleksandra Dimitrijevic
Alexander Donchenko
Vasif Durarbayli
Romain Edouard
Pavel Eljanov
Viktor Erdos

REVENUE € 9.226
Sponsorship / Donations € 1.055
Membership fees 2019 € 8.171

EXPENDITURE € 7.091
Tournament prizes and member support in tournaments € 5.417
Accountant fee € 0
Web site € 800
Streaming and social media € 600
Travel expenses € 0
Bank account maintenance and transfer expenses € 274

Dear Colleagues,

Chess is often unfavourably compared to tennis. Unlike the tennis world, chess lacks an open, all-inclusive cycle that would encompass the top and the bottom of the pyramid. In tennis we have the Grand Slams at the top, but also the local Futures tournaments at the bottom. The structure is clear, easy to understand and  the players see the way to the top ahead of them. Needless to say, a bottom-to-top cycle is a product that sponsors love to be part of.
 

Dear Colleagues,

The ACP conducted two surveys that took more than two months and we would like to share our findings.

One survey was prompted by FIDE President’s idea to limit the participation of chess professionals to a single league. While the President modified his statement with a later post, our findings showed a clear picture. Out of 97 votes, 86 voted against this limitation and only 11 voted for.

A separate poll that was run on the ACP President’s Twitter account had 315 votes and 85% of those voted against the limitation.

Dear Colleagues,
 
The pandemic changed our world in more than one way.
 
Many people have been struggling during this time. That is why we prepared a questionnaire with the aim to understand the economical situation of our members and according to that information and based on your suggestions to think and develop new strategies to ensure a decent way of living for the chess professionals.

The results are:
 

In the immediate aftermath of the Online Olympiad, ACP would like to express its opinion on the current state of affairs in the chess world.

First and foremost we would like to thank FIDE for being proactive and trying to react to the pandemics by organising online events. Had it been otherwise, the chess life for “ordinary” professionals and amateurs alike would have come to a standstill. Doing nothing was not an option.