The English Chess Federation (ECF) is the governing chess organisation in England and it is affiliated to FIDE. The ECF was formed in 2004 as one of the more localised successors to the British Chess Federation (BCF), an organisation founded in 1904. The BCF replaced the British Chess Association (BCA) and initially governed chess its pre-eminent ratings and rules in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Nowadays, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands are governed by their own chess federations and English chess administrators agreed in 2004 that it would be factual to replace the BCF with the ECF, a change effective from the start of the 2005/6 season.