To summarize what I could gather from the german thread on the DGoB forum, where both Martin Stiassny and Michael Marz (president of the DGoB) responded:

* The haste is apparently due to the sponsors pressing for a swift decision.
* The EGF contacted all members (presidents/boards) explicitly asking for confidential treatment. To me it isn't clear why this was done, but EGF might have seen confidential treatment as the only way to guarantee a swift decision.
* The EGF requested consultation not a vote and people privy to the information interpreted this the same way and apparently complied with the demanded confidentiality (e.g. in Germany not informing the state-level associations) regardless of personal reservations about the procedure. (The Q&A shown in this thread are in the same spirit.)
* Several strong players within the envisioned age limit were already contacted (without full disclosure) to probe their intentions regarding an European insei school. There already are five candidates (from five countries) for 2013, who will be present at the EGC.
* Li Ting will be present in Beijing for the first phase of the insei school, so apparently she is closely involved.
* Quite a few articles of the signed treaty don't represent detailed proposals but more or less vague ideas.
* More information soon at the EGC / AGM. The CEGO representative will be present there as well.

The BGA would like to clarify a few things:

* the (signed) China contract document was not made public deliberately by the BGA
* the draft contract was circulated to EGF members with a (reasonable) request for limited circulation and for voting
* the final contract was distributed with some additional covering comments as part of the EGF information pack for the forthcoming AGM, but without any request for restricting circulation further

Regards

Jon Diamond
President

A short comment to this Agreement:
- I do not like the style in which it occurred, it is not a commercial contract (unless ;>), only a contract for sponsorship, so I don't see justification for secrecy and speed with which it occurred - what does it mean that the sponsor wanted to speed? No kidding.
- Part of record is unclear what that make feeling that will not be realized becouse of the " objective difficulties";
- The first time I meet with a sponsor who enters so deeply into the matter sponsored. It is not sponsoring a tournament, but the whole federation.
- I do not know how to achieve this agreement to the legal system in my country. "Amateur diploma" is a complete abstraction, especially if someone is expected signature of the competent ministry in my country, here it works differently. First - on the basis of local sports clubs we have to set up the national sport association, then we can think obout. In my country professional sportsmen is who has signed a contract with his club, not brought a certificate from abroad.
- What can change several or even tens professionals? IMO our discipline must be relatively massive, then we can think about the professional player. Even if professionals would like to pass his knowledge to others (which I doubt), but in my country do not really have a place to do it - there is a little clubs without the resources to pay for a professional. Again, there is the local legal system - in my country, to teach, you need to have the title of instructor or coach, so even if a national professional would like to make the legal teach, it still would have to comply certain conditions.

Of course we can ignore such details, I do not think anything has changed in the proverbial "pits" (small local club and community) because hardly anyone will want to spar with adversity - I run local club and I have no idea how I would pay profesional player legally. I think that instead of moving Asian methods we should focus on the similar method like in other disciplines like chess etc.

It is possible that my concerns are exaggerated, but I have not found anywhere a trace suggesting that someone analyze it from this angle. IMO the worst thing we can do is to create a hybrid of bad acting that, in fact, they will struggle activists from the local club.

I am wholeheartedly positive to this agreement and I sencerely hope and think that it will be good for European go.

However, there are a number of questions...
Democracy:
Was there enough time given to the people voting to fully understand what they were agreeing to?
Was there enough time given to get the information distributed to even the few people intended to receive it, e.g. the boards of the national associations? (Due to circumstances not worth getting into here, none of the board members of the Swedish go association knew anything before the deal was signed.)
Would it perhaps have been been a good idea to seek other ways of contacting the boards that did not vote? (I'll admit I don't know if other countries had similar logistic problems as Sweden or for othere reasons didn't vote. Perhaps all other countries voted?)
Some individuals ("strong players") were contacted personally. I suspect that their say had some kind of impact on the decision?
While I think it's a good idea to have a OK from the potential future professionals, I'm not sure if their votes should have the biggest impact, (Not saying that it had.) nor that more effort should have been put into contacting them than the national boards. (Not saying that it was.)
The haste:
While it may be perfectly understandable reasons behind it, e.g. other actors (such as the Chinese Government) may be supplying funds with such demands, not explaining the reasons will get people speculating which never is a good thing.
The content of the agreement:
I have big problems comprehending the details of what has been agreed upon, specifically regarding the "credit", "EGF income", and "reducion sum".
For instance

Is it obvious that "b" is excluded?
It seems to me that e.g. "amount used as 'sum of 6'" is a bit strange, one may argue that it's a way of obfuscating the content. (Perhaps it's just me, being a non native English speaker, but then again most people agreeing to the terms are too.)
Legal aspects:
I have heard a speculation that this deal is a menas of money laundry or a way of transferring money out of the country, which is quite hard for Chinese companies.
While this may be hard to know, it may be good to know of such speculations and to be extra careful.

I hope that these, and other, questions will be answered at the AGM at EGC, so that we can make the best out of the situation without people speculating that there is some kind of faul play...

Also, we now have this agreement signed and done. I don't see how we could terminate it prematurely, so let's make the best out of it regardless of opinions on e.g. Chinese rules!

/Mats

_________________
mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

If the deal is about money laudering, what would the Chinese company get back monetarily for their sponsorship?

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

I hope that the agreement will be a success too. It is concerning to me that Sweden didn't get the chance to see the proposal
Regarding the financial point, my reading was this.
The reduction amount is calculated as: 50% of the income from member nations fees + 50% of the income from 'managing bonus tournaments' + 20% of money from other sponsors or other sources of income.

_________________
North Lecale

What would the companies get out of this deal no matter if it's all fair and square (which I prefer to assume)?

Regarding Swedens awareness, it's all to do with internal logistcs, it would probably have been different with a longer time before voting but the main problem was with our own organization.

/Mats

_________________
mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

So, what happened with this proposal at the European Go Congress? Was there an announcement that I missed?

Is everybody happy with the outcome?

Is everybody happy with the process?

Thanks.

_________________
- Brady
Want to see videos of low-dan mistakes and what to learn from them? Brady's Blunders

The minutes from the AGM was just published



As far as I understand, there is no proposal, only a "contract" that has already been signed.

/Mats

_________________
mohsart - games & books
http://spel.mohsart.se/

I think it means that the EGF is open to new proposals which can be added onto the current contract.
It would be nice to see some more details on the new European tournament system that will be replacing the European Cup - Cristian Pop has won the last edition. We are, I presume, going to have some literature published soon which gives a guide to playing with Chinese Rules. Look forward to seeing it on the website.

_________________
North Lecale

Perhaps more and more Europeans will start referring to the game as weiqi since it will be played using Chinese rules.

_________________
http://tchan001.wordpress.com
A blog on Asian go books, go sightings, and interesting tidbits
Go is such a beautiful game.

Only the professional qualification tournaments will use the Chinese rules; everyone else (here) uses the Japanese rules.