[tournament-org] Consultation on the BGA Levy

[secretary at britgo.org]

Hi,

 

I am looking for some input on lessons learned from running the BGA Levy
system on tournaments. In fact this is to help the EGF, but will indirectly
help ourselves as well. I have circulated this to the tournament organisers
list, and a few others who will have relevant experience. I need to explain
the background to this request first .

 

Background:

The EGF is proposing to change the way it charges membership fees to its
member countries. If it gets agreement (possibly a big if) this will be
applicable from 2025. The details are as yet undecided, and I did expect
there to be a formal consultation exercise, but it now looks like they will
just bring their proposal to the 2024 AGM and vote on it. However, as we
already run a system which is similar to their proposal (the levy system)
they are keen to hear from us about what works well and what doesn't. Hence
we may have some ability to shape the debate before next year's AGM.

 

Proposed Fee Structure:

>From 2025 the EGF membership fee for each country will consist of two
components

a.	A set annual amount per member from that country, plus
b.	For each tournament played in that country which is submitted to the
EGD, a small participation fee for each player in the tournament which will
vary according to the status of the player. Players who are members of a
national association which is in the EGF will incur a much smaller fee than
non-members.

 

The first part requires each country to maintain a list of its members. The
second part means that the BGA will be charged based on UK tournament
participation, regardless of which country the players are from. Whilst we
have still to discuss this it is likely that the BGA will expect Tournament
Directors to pay that component to the BGA, who will then pay the EGF. How
the TD's set the price for their events will of course be down to them, but
the EGF fees will apply to all events submitted to the EGD.

 

An example:

Please note these numbers are from my head and are very much indicative only
and the final figures will be set as part of the debate with the EGF. The
scheme may look like:

*	The BGA pays 2 or 3 euro annually to the EGF for every member we
have. 
*	For each tournament held in the UK, the EGF will charge the BGA 0.5
euro for every participant who is already a national member of an EGF
country, and 2 euro for every non-member.

 

Some immediate implications:

The EGF have already realised that TDs will want to charge non-members more
than members, given that non-members will cost them more. This means that
that TDs will need easy access to a Europe-wide membership database, so they
can quickly check for each entrant whether or not they are a paid up member
of an EGF country. The EGF know they have to build this database, and then
persuade all member countries to keep it up to date. Without this the system
is unworkable as TDs won't be able to do differential charging.

 

Just a little thought raises a whole slew of questions on the detail of
this, none of which we have answers to yet. Some that I can think of are

*	What about multi-day tournaments, is the charge per day? If so how
would the EGF know which rounds were on which days to raise the correct
bill?
*	What about first-time tournament players where typically we don't
charge? Will the EGF do the same?
*	What about concessions? Will the charges for juniors etc be lower,
and if so how will the EGF know who qualifies for a concession? 
*	Will online tournaments/events be charged?
*	Will the membership database say when the person's membership starts
and ends, and will that be used by the EGF in their billing calculations?

 

 

Sorry for the length of this, but what I would like from you please are your
experiences of handling our current levy system, what problems it has caused
you, and how you got round them. Also given the proposed structure above,
what would be needed to make it workable for you? 

 

I will collate all the responses and create a document to send in to the
EGF. It will ostensibly be  a 'lessons learned' document, but if there is a
strong view on any topic I can use it to put the case for the things we want
to see.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Colin Williams

BGA Secretary      mail:  secretary at britgo.org <mailto:secretary at britgo.org>




 

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