Category Archives: Articles

The Arbiters’ Council is proud to announce the 2025 Chess Arbiters education programme which features six different seminars with 22 dates already announced in the new ECU Training Hub.

The ECU Arbiters’ Council invites all arbiters to participate in the ChessManager Seminar (online) on 1st March 2025, from 10:00 to 13:00 CET.

Participation is free of charge. The seminar will be conducted in English.

Introduction If you ask me to come up with regulations about dress codes, I simply cannot write one, but I can think of how to break wrong dress code regulations! Dress is more than just clothing – it is a form of self-expression, because the way a person dresses very often reflects their views and values, which can… Read More »

The ECU Arbiters’ Council organized a Swiss Manager Seminar on 18th and 19th January 2025. The Seminar was organized online, the language was English and the Lecturers were IA Marco Biagioli and IA Tania Karali. 23 Arbiters from 14 Federations attended the Seminar in the first day, which included the introduction and the basic functions of the Swiss… Read More »

Over the last few years, as chess has grown its popularity on social media, especially when important events are happening, I had to notice that we are acquiring some bad habits of the mass sports such as soccer, including starting endless public discussions on the arbiters’ decisions. Generally, the most active people on these discussions, as you’d expect,… Read More »

The ECU Arbiters Council organizes a Swiss Manager Seminar (online) on 18th and 19th of January 2025. The seminar language will be English.

The lecturers are IA Marco Biagioli and IA Tania Karali.

Registration closed.

The Swiss system entered our lives in order to avoid a situation of unpractical number of rounds compared to the Round Robin System. The Swiss pairings concept is actually not that new. It actually started back in 1895 in Zürich (hence the name Swiss System). The Swiss System was adopted by the chess world some time later with… Read More »

Dear colleagues, The Call of Interest for arbiters who wish to be appointed as match arbiters in European events in 2025 is here! We are addressing International and FIDE Arbiters (IAs and FAs) who are under the flag of federations that are affiliated to the European Chess Union. As ECU Arbiters’ Council, we appoint now 30% of the… Read More »

An article from the October edition of the ECU E-Magazine: “2024 annual report of ECU AC: Most important items”

An article from the September edition of the ECU E-Magazine: “Annual meeting of the ECU Arbiters’ Council in Budapest”