It is absolutely vital that this officer would have a proper sense of priorities: facilities and securing patronage. ...

Obviously no-one is going to toss money into an open pit, so an achievable business plan, with specific goals and not the waffle I have seen so far, is needed.

But I'm sure there are plenty of similar and workable ideas.

There's also the question "why". Why do you need continental role models?

That goes double (actually, much more) if your definition of "professional" includes people who don't much play professionally, but who teach.

Sorry to quote myself, but I just found this today.

Looks like a good idea. But why did they not mention it here? (Or reddit???)

The why is according to cego is to obtain european and more asian sponsors,if the game is internationaly more competetive the crowds that are willing to watch are much bigger,so they try to increase the level of players gradually and hope at somepoint they have competetive european players,which are absolutely necessary to achieve that,they need more ethnic diversity among the top players

the semifinals for the 1st Transatlantic Professional Go League will have a Chinese-American, two (?) Caucasians, a Mediterranean, and a player of Eastern Mediterranean extraction [*], from three different continents.

Who are the Mediterranean and the player of Eastern Mediterranean extraction?

I'm having some trouble parsing that. CEGO is, AFAIK, an outreach program towards Europe. I don't see how that affects, or not, freezing the AGA pro system (which has since been sort of restarted... sort of). Also "diversity", at this point in time, can mean so many things it basically means nothing on its own. AND the possible diversity, or not, or both associations, is completely different. AGA has 5 pros from two countries, all of them with Chinese surname. EGF has 7 pros, from 6 nationalities, two continents and, being conservative, 3 different ethnic groups.

That Western players need to get better is a given. It's happened to Taiwan, Korea and China itself. That diversity has anything to do with to that... is questionable. And I'd like to read what experience the Chinese system has with it that supports those claims. Also, I don't think increasing diversity works that way. For starters, the pool of Go players is not wide enough. And the system is not strong enough, either, to attract pro-level Idonesians, Malaysians or blind people. Possibly, the European equivalent would be Tahitians, South Americans or Africans, I'm not sure. But to reach that far, first we'd need a much more solid base.

In any case, the semifinals for the 1st Transatlantic Professional Go League will have a Chinese-American, two (?) Caucasians, a Mediterranean, and a player of Eastern Mediterranean extraction [*], from three different continents. Out of four players, and not counting for possible mixed heritages [+]. What's the "diversity" in the Mingren semifinals?

Take care.

[*] Sorry, I don't have the data to be any more precise, and mistakes in that area can be... sensitive.
[+] I've never heard a European refer to himself as such, beyond saying it to reflect were his own parents had come from. Nothing beyond that. I have trouble trying to add the racial fractions of some of my US friends.