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Naturally, most of the European Go players were wondering about the biggest event of the year - the EGC. Will it still be organized in the announced terms? Or will it be postponed? Or maybe cancelled completely?
The same questions arose for the EGC organizing team. The situation was extraordinary, and the first decision was: to wait and see how the things go. In Ukraine the government announced quarantine first until April 3, then prolonged it until April 24. Now it's prolonged until May 11. Of course, the situation in other countries was also taken into consideration. The conclusion is: we can't organize an EGC this summer in Ukraine. Such decision has to be made at least few months before the EGC starts, and we can't wait any longer for the situation with the virus to get better.
Let me quote here a public mail of Mr. Martin Stiassny, the EGF president. He directed this mail to all the national Go organizations:
Dear friends,
today the EGF executive-board got the information from the president of the Ukrainian Go Federation, Mr. Dmitriy Yatsenko, that it's impossible to organize the EGC 2020 in the Ukraine because of rules/restrictions of the Ukrainian government. Following the wish of the Ukrainian Go Federation the EGF executive-board agreed on the EGC 2021 in the Ukraine.
With the agreement of Catalin Taranu, representing the Romanian Go Federation, the EGF executive-board assigned the EGC 2022 to Romania. So both at the moment given EGCs will be postponed for one year.
To fix the EGC 2022 right now is not only fair against Romania but also no problem for other European countries, because till now, 3 months before the planned AGM 2020, no request for hosting the EGC 2022 has been sent to the EGF.
We are preparing this year's AGM as an online-event, more information on this will come soon.
Best regards - and keep healthy
Martin Stiassny
(on behalf of the EGF executive-board)
So, in short: EGC 2020 will not happen this summer. EGC 2021 will take place in Ukraine, and Romania takes EGC 2022.
I know that a number of questions appear after this decision. Let me try to answer some of them.
1. What will happen with the EGC 2020 official EGF events - European Go Championship, Pandanet Go European Team Championship?
I asked Martin Stiassny and he gave me permission to share some of the plans.
European Championship - either face to face or online, maybe only for the top 16. We will wait a bit, so maybe October 2020 would be realistic.
Pandanet Final - there is a plan to make an online-final this year. Of course, some anti-cheating measures will be applied. The final has to take place at the latest in August 2020, before the start of the new PGETC-season.
The information given above are just draft plans, so please wait for the official statements.
2. What will happen with the money people paid for the EGC 2020?
This question is still under discussion of the organizing team. Same as the new EGC dates, it will be published as soon as possible.
Please, wait for the EGC organizers to investigate more the given circumstances. When everything will be ready - we will let you know.
I can assure you about one thing. If you paid a congress fee for the year 2020, and you plan to take part in the EGC 2021 in Ukraine - it will be counted as if you paid the EGC 2021 fee.
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