International Chess Federation (FIDE) President Arkady Dvorkovich talked about the transition of the Russian Chess Federation (RFC) to the auspices of the Asian Chess Federation (ACF), which will take place in 2023. In an interview with socialbites.ca, he stated that thanks to this, Asian chess has become more competitive.
“The transition of Russian chess from Europe to Asia means a clear strengthening of Asia in the world chess arena, because Russian chess is one of the leading ones in the world. The competitiveness of Asian chess has increased. In terms of organizing international tournaments, this means a shift towards Asia. We see that there are more applications from Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Oman, UAE, China, India). In fact, many countries compete to host international chess tournaments. There are no fewer applications from Europe anymore, there are more applications from Asia. Of course, the Russian factor is one of the important factors in this process.
For Russian chess players, this is a chance to compete in more tournaments. But otherwise, perhaps nothing has changed in terms of holding the World Championship. “Russian chess players constitute, as always, 15-20 percent of all participants and this proportion does not change, so we believe that the situation remains stable despite all the global turmoil,” noted the FIDE president.
In the spring of 2022, FIDE allowed Russians and Belarusians to compete in individual tournaments only in a neutral status. In this context, FSR decided to move to Asia. On 28 February, the ACF General Assembly voted to admit FSR to membership, which took place on 1 May.
Previously Dvorkovich named Changing sports citizenship is normal practice.