Eligibility Votes - March 2022

[Willie Rutherford]

Let's guess only about 30 people a year are seriously considered for selection to represent Scotland, the vast majority will have life-long eligibility through birth or parentage.....

On the last Olympiad perhaps half the 10 players were resident-only qualifiers for a Scotland registration. If they leave Scotland to work or live should their eligibility to represent Scotland be curtailed?

Why not? If residence was your only connection to Scotland and you are no longer resident why should you still be eligible?
Of course, there is a discussion to be had about exact criteria to make sensible allowance for short-term periods of non-residency e.g. your eligibility based on residency expires if you have not been resident in Scotland for at least 6 months in the last 5 years (top of head example)

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Hi Willie,
With regard to being selected for Scotland, that is only a small part of the problem.  To be able to play in a FIDE rated event of any description you need to be given a FIN (FIDE Identification Number).  This is issued by your 'own' national federation.  For Douglas to establish which category a player satisfies would be time consuming.  Tournament organisers would need to be educated in the problems that a late attempt at registration can cause.  A player without a FIN means that the tournament cannot be submitted to FIDE for rating.  Some federations can be slow to issue FINs, especially if they do not know who the player is.  This becomes a real problem with players who currently satisfy residency but may lose that right in the future so prefer to seek a more permanent solution.
Imagine the admin that will be required for a junior rapidplay to be FIDE rated.  For a small tournament in Edinburgh this weekend I know of 6 juniors who have not provided sufficient evidence to be registered under the current arrangements!  

With regard to proposal 2, I agree totally EXCEPT our own rules have already been broken.  I argue that there should be a 'statute of limitations' on when this can be corrected and that any reasonable time to do so has been exceeded.
If England refuses to accept Matt back then he faces a €50 per year fee from FIDE to be registered as FID which I feel, morally, Chess Scotland should pay.  In addition he will no longer be invited to title norm events as FID (which would be his designation) does not satisfy the nationality requirements for opponents' title norms.
If we do reject Matt shouldn't we also be doing the same for anyone who used residency but no longer qualifies?  It is a minefield that I for one don't want to enter.

If we leave Matt as SCO but strip him of the rights associated with that, then we are clearly discriminating against him.  There were no restrictions put on him initially by Chess Scotland.

Thanks Alex but like others have said, eligibility for an SCO code at FIDE and eligibility to represent Scotland or be declared Scottish Champion are surely 2 entirely different things. I am not sure I care who has an SCO code, the more the merrier. Re MT I see no problem with the status quo of him retaining his SCO code but being ineligible to represent Scotland. The only "discrimination against" him would be the perfectly valid one of not allowing him to represent Scotland because he doesn't meet the criteria. The same "discrimination" that applies to everyone else. I agree it is important that where relevant the individuals should be helped to understand the implications of having an SCO code if they hope to represent some other country. It seems maybe this didn't happen with MT (as to why...let's not go through all that again, please!) so as stated before, if MT is unhappy with the status quo I would be sympathetic to CS supporting him financially to move, within reason. I hope he would choose not to.