Grandparents rule

[David Deary]

Personally I think we should trust the wisdom of the selectors.

That is the body of people appointed to everything into account and who should routinely consider the merits of every paid up member who satisfies all the qualification rules.

Changing the rules to an alternative acceptable version seems OK to me.

Personally I moved to Scotland in 2003. I was an economic migrant.
Had I been good enough to be playing another country at time would it have been correct for me to be forced to stop playing for them ?

Phil these proposed rules are not acceptable to me and many other Chess Scotland members. As I highlighted you could have a player living in Switzerland (most neutral country I can think of!), born in Switzerland whose Grandmother was born in Scotland 80 years ago playing for Scotland. I cannot endorse a situation where this could occur. Also I don’t have enough faith that the selectors won’t change and their view on this wont change and then we have a team of ringers representing Scotland. No thanks!

To answer a question, no it is not against FIDE rules, I know of quite a few federations with this rule.

Secondly, at the AGM we voted to allow Matthew to transfer. We could end up with the ludicrous situation where according to FIDE he is eligible to play for Scotland (it is either Jan 2013 or 2014, I can't remember off the top of my head) but according to our rules he can't. We cannot keep the status quo because of this.

Andy, I hope you are going to provide evidence from FIDE with this effect at the SGM?
Also, our AGMs are hardly the most representative. They are the best we’ve got but I wouldn’t champion that the AGM voted for this and that. The AGM also made a commitment to hold an SGM within 3 months and I think we’ve exceeded that timetable twice over!

There is nothing ludicrous in life.
Matthew could be SCO in order to play in international tournaments and keep his rating but not play in the Olympiad.

Totally agree Andy! This issue should not be personalised, Matthew is a great guy and I have seen first hand his commitments to Scottish juniors. However, this is a fundamental change to the rules to represent this country at the highest level and Matthew's situation is a seperate issue.