As the leadership of Ukrainian Go Federation is notoriously not very good at sharing information with public, I'll try to help here. Although, I have no relation to EGC 2020 organization whatsoever and any possible opinions are my own.
On April 11th there was a list from EGF President Martin Stiassny to UGF President Dmytro Yatsenko. It was shared publicly at UGF forum here:
https://forum.ufgo.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=23592&start=10#p96136. Here it is:
Quote:
Dear Dmitriy,
my first question in these days: Are you healthy and in good mood and condition ? I haven't heard about the situation in the Ukraine, any restrictions besides "noone can leave the country".
Well, after contacting Artem I got the message that you put a notice on the EGC-webpage about postponing a final decision till midth of May. This point was an important agenda-point in our last Skype-meeting of the EGF executive-board. So I write to you today on behalf of the EGF executive-board, it's not (only) my personal opinion.
We think that a decision midst of May is too late, because many persons, who registered for the congress, are afraid of losing money if not cancelling in time accomodation / flights - independant from the entry-fee. On the other hand we understand that you are trying to decide as late as possible, still hoping on "a better environment, worldwide". We also want to avoid any losses for your Go-organisation, but, sorry to say, from day to day it looks more likely that a congress in the Ukraine in July/Augsut 2020 won't be possible, because of too many personal restrictions for the participants (no flights, not allowed to travel, when coming back two weeks isolation, and so on). When I'm thinking about the up to 200 possible players/guests from China I am convinced that at the moment noone is believing on a realistic chance for travelling to Europe in July...
To make it very clear: It is your decision to cancel the EGC 2020, not the decision of the EGF. But the EGF-board decided that we will do whatever we can that the EGC2021 can happen in the Ukraine, like planned for 2020. Romania, the planned organizer of the EGC2021, will take the EGC2022 if you want the EGC2021. This is fixed and has been confirmed again by Catalin Taranu. We are at the moment in the lucky position that we have no EGC-candidate for 2022. So, with a congress in 2022 in Romania, we don't need to talk with any other country.
Facit: From the EGF-side everything is prepared to postpone the EGC2020 to 2021, and additional the congress 2022 can be fixed for Romania.
Last not least: We all want to come to the Ukraine and we honour your engagement, preparations and investments for the congress. But it would help all of us - and I'm sure I can say this on behalf of all European players, and our friends from Far East - if you postpone the congress right now. Please don't let us wait additional 5 weeks.
By the way, I will put Natalia Kovaleva in her function as a member of the EGF-board on copy. You can contact her whenever you want as well.
Hoping to hear from you soon
Best regards
Martin Stiassny (on behalf of the EGF executive-board)
UGF President's comment to this letter was: "It is difficult to make a decision, but the circumstances are force majeure, so we will have to consider the technology of transferring Congress dates to 2021.". This seems to be the all public information, besides official web page, that is available.
Currently the region where EGC 2020 was planned to take place has one of the lowest number of registered COVID-19 cases (38). However, the lack of testing in country as a whole and in that region in particular seems apparent, as in neighborhood regions numbers are significantly higher (including one of the biggest number of cases, 759).