You know, I totally missed the ruling by an international court that WADA's out of competition testing was in violation of human rights.

In 13 years of trying to qualify for an international tournament, it never occurred to you that you there would be an expectation to follow the laws of the host country? The expectation to follow host country laws is so obvious I wouldn't even think it needs to be explained.

That's what I offered to them: Not to represent them at the IGF meeting. However, they chose to go for a compromise with that I could agree while then also representing them.



Simple: There was no rule that a WAGC player must also represent his association. If anything, it was only a tradition. I.e., non-mandatory.



Finding information is the easy part. The difficult part is to verify whether the information is relevant and correct. E.g., I still do not have reliable information which prohibited doping substances list would be the one to be applied. All I have is varying rumours. I have asked the German go association executive and an IGF director to get a definite answer but have not received one yet. Have you done likewise and already got an answer?



Exactly, and the German rules say NOTHING about political representation or even a duty of it.

Robert is a 5 dan in hyperbole.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

You're still mistaking the term "political" here.

And, above, you say it was a "tradition"; in 13 years, you didn't know that tradition? I have a feeling that you're a prominent member of the German go association, so you must have been aware the way things occurred.

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My blog about Macs and more: Kirkville

I think the Belgian athletes, who have questioned the same, are still being on their national courts level. We will have to wait the usual another decade or so until matters reach high international courts. Not surprisingly, because whereabouts rules are pretty new, introduced January 2009 (or 2008?) and courts are hopelessly slow.

So your refusal to support democratically reached decisions of the DGoB was based on nothing but your personal opinion then?

I have not said so.

I follow and expect to have to follow the laws of the host country, provided they do NOT violate higher principles like human rights.

I also expect that one crime is punished only once and not twice (like by a second punishment by the IGF).

The mistake of the IGF conduct clause is not to point out the existence of national laws but the mistake is a) to ignore international law and the possibility of its conflict with thus invalid national law, b) to ignore the possibility of an oppressive country, c) to punish for the second time at all and d) possibly to give the IGF Board too much power / duties it will be able to handle in the long run.

In the past even much more than today, IGF politics were first of all mostly kept secret to us ordinary players. I think there was also a reform of the IGF from Japan-centered to world-wide and that has been comparatively recent. German go association executive members said little to ordinary players about how the IGF worked internally and WAGC participants reported, if at all, about the go tournament and their country travel experience - not or hardly anything about IGF or even its politics and internal structure. It did not occur to me that information that later might become relevant for me remained hidden and that I should surpass the general lack of information by asking suitable questions about internal IGF structures years earlier.

It is like internal EU structure. Unless you start to read laws or specialized EU literature on your own, you would not even notice that there is a difference between initiative legislature and adopting legislature and how they are shared between the EU bodies. Almost all the media and politicians leave us innocent EU citizens dull.

As I have said, not just my opinion but also my conscience.

As I have explained, I do not consider players to have a duty to support as a politician against their will an association's executive contrary to those players' will. Quite like I do not expect a national soccer team member and German citizen to have to support the German government in their, say, non-international armed conflict (informally called "war" or "war-like situation") in Afghanistan.

EDIT: Democracy involves the right to be of different opinion and of having the option to choose not to support a contrary opinion actively. This does not require having to quit democracy (the DGoB) but it suffices to choose a different representative for the IGF meeting. Not in the least would democracy be hurt if political representative and player representative were different. In fact, like this it has worked in EGC and EGF for many years.

I would like to apologize for starting this thread.

Rather I would like to thank you for having informed us of the existence of the new ruleset!

The ensuing discussion is very useful for reflecting possible consequences of the rules before they will be applied. This gives players a chance to prepare themselves instead of being caught with unexpected application. It is also important to know how the IGF enhances its scope of activity in relation to the players.

Dear Robert,

if you were serious about politics you would not complain about being banned from international competition for making a political statement. That is, if you are sure that it is a statement worth making. For inspiration take a look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olymp ... wer_salute - I would not mind you giving a statement on your hope for a unified Korea after winning the KPMC e,g, - would have been more impressive during military rule in South Korea but still. (But only after winning.)

Since nobody has been banned yet, I do not complain about such but about the possibility of somebody being banned in future on political grounds.