Miscarriages by EBU Incompetence

We are not very happy with the EBU right now – they suspended our player on flimsy evidence, ignoring the blindingly obvious that would have had the case be thrown out immediately. We are thinking of leaving the EBU as a club as other clubs have in protest.

I don’t really want to tell my story. I plead guilty, because I was essentially blackmailed into it, but I’m not permitted to speak about it publicly.
A kangaroo court beyond ridiculous.
My sponsors are standing behind me and while it’s hard knowing what people are saying, I don’t care what people who don’t know me think, especially those who believe anything that fucktard has to say.

I feel ashamed that the administration has tried to ruin others’ reputations as they did ours. I do feel very sorry for people who are still at working age to have the bad publicity and published character reference. I’m shocked in fact that this has happened. As far as people like myself are concerned I had to explain to friends family and in fact everyone I know that the accusations are untrue. We have played bridge without accusations for over 40 years and on account of our age and health may not have many more years to play. It is cruel to say the least. 
My husband feels equally upset but his way of coping is to not talk about it. 
A crumb of comfort may be that people tell me it’s only a game and so they don’t even consider the toxic publicity. Also they say people who make such accusations are not worth consideration.

I won’t play games online in the country where I live. I have joined another country and enjoy playing my bridge in their games.

I went to a hearing and was found Not Guilty. Experts were properly confused that anyone was planning to continue to a hearing, given how convincing the defense case was. The administration proceeded despite being warned they were likely to embarrass themselves. My natural reaction, following the verdict was to have precious little to do with the administration and to get them where it hurts – in their pocket. Although I have largely achieved that, there are one or two events that I have played in, as friends have asked me to. A number of my friends have had nothing to do with affiliated bridge in my country sine; partly because of the way they conducted themselves and partly because of the accessibility of online bridge since the pandemic.

Having said that I am playing a huge amount of Bridge, almost all online. The paradigm shift in the bridge model that happened at the start of the pandemic and which was coincident with the start of my case has opened up many bridge communities where I can play at a much higher standard than at any of the local clubs, and without travelling.

So I am playing in quite a few events in other countries, plus a large number of informal matches with friends from around the country (and the world).

In addition to withdrawing my tournament ‘bucks’ from my home country, I have stopped using ANY of their materials in my teaching activities. It’s part of my own little protest.

I have no intention of going back to my local club; partly as there’s no value in a bridge context, but also because they were extracting published results and feeding them into an analysis tool, which they did over a period of many years. Whilst they would be crazy to do the same thing again, we saw how crazy they were to go to a hearing in the first place. And I, for one, am not prepared to be put under that kind of scrutiny. It’s one thing being scrutinised if you’re playing international opponents, but entirely different if you’re playing opponents who bridge competence is low.

I don’t have anything to do with bridge anymore and I’m just trying to get on with my life. I might be willing to tell my story. It was a complete stitch up.

We were eventually proven innocent and we were supported throughout by great people and our clubs.
Our story doesn’t matter so much as we are not young and have come to terms with the pain we went through.
The internet publicity doesn’t matter so much to us – we play regularly at a non-affiliated club because our club unaffiliated in protest.
I often direct, attendances there are excellent and we love our bridge.