The early withdrawal of Walter Meuwis from BIC 2018 Division 1 after 4 out of 7 encounters (8 out of 14 matches) had as side effect that the ranking of the first four players in that division, the ones that are qualified for the play-off, depended on how Walter’s partial results would be taken into account.
The BIC 2018 rules do not cover such a situation. Since Walter had played more than half of his matches, the BIC 2018 comittee’s decision was to keep Walter’s result in the table and to declare the 3 remaining encounters as 2-0 victories for Walter’s opponents. This decision is not uncommon in other sports.
This decision, however, was to the disadvantage of Michel Lamote, who thereby ended 5th with 7 victories out of 14 matches, while Paulus van Rooijen, receiving a 2-point forfait bonus, ended 4th with 8 points out of 14.
On September 17, 2018, Michel wrote to the BGFed.be board to introduce an appeal. The same day, the board appointed an appeal committee to settle the matter.
Today, September 30, 2018, the appeal committee has come to a decision [free translation of the Dutch original]:
Given the high impact on the ranking of 6 forfaited matches out of 56 (more than 10%) in a double round-robin tournament without home and away stages, and given the fact that not all players in the running for the four qualifying places in Division 1 have had to do the same program, the appeal committee has ruled that all of Walter’s results need to be removed from the ranking.
The extensive and detailed argumentation (in Dutch) can be read here.
The appeal comittee’s decision is binding and, at least within the federation, no further appeal is possible.
In line with the decision, the BIC 2018 committee will calculate the new ranking in Division 1 and inform the players involved, so that the tournament can proceed.
In the name of the federation, I would like to say a big and warm THANK YOU to the appeals committee for a thorough and efficient job. In less than two weeks time, they have exchanged numerous messages, investigated what happens in other sports (cricket, chess, correspondence chess), crossed the country to meet in person, and crafted an extensive and well-structured document, answering not only the initial question but also making extremely useful recommendations for the future. Kris, Luc, en Nick, dank je wel!