We sincerely regret and must strongly protest recent publications by Mr. Vinicio Di Paolo, Delegate of the Rottweilerclub of Argentina and former Vice-President – acting President of the IFR-Board.
Mr. Vinicio Di Paolo published on Facebook and in the magazine “Total Rottweiler Magazine” the statement that he was removed from the office of IFR-President because of his “frontal, sincere, expeditious, plural, compostional and anti establishment style”. He published that this was done by “using all gadget that you can believe, manipulating delegates and other issues” and with disrespect of the IFR-Constitution, suggesting that the extra-ordinary meeting of Delegates dd. 22.09.2016 was not organized in accordance to the IFR-Constitution so not valid and so nor the election of the new IFR-Board. We read that the Belgian Delegate (Mr. Vandecasteele) was displeased with all that was done by Mr. Di Paolo because he was displeased for not being elected IFR-President himself and that the extra ordinary meeting dd. 22.09.2016 was only called to remove Mr. Di Paolo from office to fulfill a personal dream or ambition of Mr. Vandecasteele to become IFR-President.
These publications oblige the Board to react. Those messages are not true. They are slanderous and disrespectful, not just for the person of the IFR-President Mr. D. Vandecasteele but also for the IFR itself as Mr. Di Paolo seems to contest the validity of the Meeting of Delegates dd. 22.09.2016, he questions the way and motives why the IFR-Delegates demanded for this Extra Ordinary Meeting of Delegates, he questions their motives of their vote and he thus seems to question the validity of the decisions of the Meeting of Delegates and its election of the Board.
We formally invite the Argentine Rottweilerclub to communicate if it supports these publications by Mr. Di Paolo or if they are just personal publications.
We also invite the Argentine Rottweilerclub to say if Mr. Di Paolo can still represent it as a Delegate to the IFR, an organization of which he seems to question its correctness and the value of its democratic processes.
As all IFR-Delegates know, those publications are untrue. They show disrespect for the truth, for democracy and the opinion of people, in this case the opinion and work of the IFR-Delegates and Boardmembers, who actively engage themselves for the IFR.
Mr. Vinicio Di Paolo, we will state the facts. If you dispute the truth of these statements, please let us know and we will then publish all letters and e-mails that were exchanged. These prove the reality of what follows. Until now, it was Mr. Vandecasteele who personally insisted not to publish those letters and not to publish any document about the reason why the IFR-Meeting of Delegates and the elections of 22.09.2016 were organized because he wanted the transfer of the Board to be done with honor and respect for all, with no damage for the IFR and also because of a personal “friendship”. You now force the IFR-Board to react.
Mr. Di Paolo was elected as vice-president of the IFR in 2015. There was a discussion about the validity of the election of Mr. Biondollillo as President of the IFR as afterwards it was said that the count of the votes was wrong. When Mr. Biondollillo did not accept a recount of the ballots, Mr. Vandecasteele formally stated that he would not insist but would accept the presidency of Mr. Biondollillo. The Board takes no position in this but we do not understand why Mr. Di Paolo keeps coming back on this as Mr. Vandecasteele never again claimed to have been elected and so all this is totally irrelevant. Publishing such disinformation is only harmful for the IFR.
The publication by Mr. Di Paolo that Mr. Vandecasteele continously expressed his disagreement to the management of the Board is highly untrue. For more than a full year, all Memberclubs – also the Belgian Rottweilerclub – gave full support to the Board and there was not one expression of disagreement, not one ! If Mr. Di Paolo claims otherwise, we challenge him to prove what he says.
Unfortunately, the Board was totally inactive. It is true that the former President transferred the funds on the workingaccount of the IFR but not those on the savingsaccount as he claimed that he received legal advice not to do so if he contested the elections. This was protested by all, including publicly by Mr. Vandecasteele. It is however also true that more than enough money w as transferred for the IFR-Board to function but that the Board remained totally inactive.
After more than a full year of inactivity of the Board, a polite request for information on the status of the IFR was sent and a request to communicate the intentions or working agenda of the Board. The elected President promply resigned and Mr. Di Paolo, as vice president, had the choice to organize new elections or to take over the task of President.
He chose for taking over the task, but again there was a continued inactivity of the Board.
Mr. Vandecasteele has then repeatedly sent, on behalf of the Belgian Rottweilerclub, letters asking for the intentions of the Board. All these letters were always sent in cc. to all Delegates so there is perfect transparency. No Memberclubs protested those letters as we all witnessed the inactivity of the Board.
In those letters, Mr. Vandecasteele never asked for a Meeting of Delegates, he did not ask for elections, he did not accuse anyone of whatever. These letters were in our opinion polite letters, constructive and with references to the IFR-Constitution and with many suggestions of the topics that the Board could work on.
Still, there came no answers and no activity. The only activity we saw were personal postings on Facebook by Mr. Di Paolo that were not approved by the IFR-Board and that were protested by several IFR-Delegates.
It was not Mr. Vandecasteele who first asked for an extra-ordinary Meeting of the Delegates of the IFR but it was a member of the IFR-Board itself that sent the first request for this.
In fact, only after a e-mail by Mr. Di Paolo stating that he did not understand the goals of the IFR, an e-mail followed by Mr. Vandecasteele stating that in his opinion an Extra Ordinary Meeting of Delegates was called for.
Mr. Di Paolo, you know very well that :
-for this no gadgets were used and there was no manipulation of Delegates. All Delegates were free to agree or not agree and to state their opinion.
-more than 2/3 of the Memberclubs demanded an Extra Ordinary Meeting !
-not less than 3/5 of the IFR-Board that you were leading, demanded an Extra Ordinary Meeting !
The Meeting was organized within 4 months after the first request, in accordance with the IFR-Constitution. The decision to have the Meeting at the IFR-World Championship in Finland was a decision by a vast majority of Memberclubs. This was the most logic decision : most Delegates would meet there anyway. If the Constitution refers to a central place in Europe, then this is not under pain of nullity.
Even on the agenda of the Meeting, Mr. Vandecasteele did not ask for elections, only that the total inactivity of the Board would be discussed and that only if no solution came, that possibly new elections would be organized if the Board would no longer have the confidence of the Delegates.
The agenda was :
-complaint about the inactivity of the board and its non compliance with the Constitution.
-discussion of the ethical issues that have arisen and the inactivity of the board on these issues.
-the non transfer of Bankaccount & Pienkoss books.
-vote of confidence / possibly elections of a Board to be in function until the Constitutional Meeting of Delegates 2017 with determination of its mission and / or timeschedule.
-The confirmation or not about the IFR-show 2017 in Serbia
Mr. Di Paolo was not present at the Meeting but he was represented. When the Chairman of the Meeting asked if there were remarks about the validity of the Meeting, no remarks were made, also not on behalf of the Argentine club.
At the Meeting, not only Mr. Vandecasteele was heard, also all Members of the Board were heard about the inactivity of the Board and its leadership. If Mr. Di Paolo insists, the Board can ask the former Boardmembers if we can communicate what they said about this inactivity and his leadership ?
When the vote of confidence was organized, an overwhelming majority had no confidence in the Board. Still, all individual members of the Board who were a candidate again, were re-elected so they still had the Meeting’s confidence. Is there a need to say more ?
These elections were not organized to make a personal dream come true but only because the Board was totaly inactive and the vast majority of Members did not agree with this.
If Mr. Di Paolo says that the Delegates were manipulated or influenced by “all gadgets”, we find this an insult for the Delegates who asked for the Meeting and who were there to act and vote for the best intrest of the IFR.
The new Board was elected in accordance to the Constitution, by a Meeting that was called by more than 2/3 of all Memberclubs and by an overwhelming majority of the Meeting.
As said before, although it was the wish of Mr. Vandecasteele that the Board would not publish about the reasons for the Meeting and the elections of 22 september 2016, the publications by Mr. Di Paolo make it necessary to do so to take away all false accusations and all doubt about the legimitacy of the Meeting and its decisions.
We await the answers by the Argentine Rottweilerclub on the two questions above.
With kind regards,
Walter Horn
Vice President.
