Asian Chess Federation will hold competitions in Russia
In June, Khanty-Mansiysk will host one of the main competitions of the Asian Chess Federation (ACF)-the Champions League of Asian chess clubs. This is a remarkable event. The fact is that after the introduction in 2022, in relation to the domestic sports segment of “insulating” sanctions, no major international structure decided to give Russia an elite tournament.
Russian Chess Federation (FHR) reported The fact that the Asian Chess Federation decided to hold this year one of its main competitions – the Champions of the Asian chess clubs in Russia. The tournament will be held in Khanty-Mansiysk from June 17 to 26. A total of ten teams with six players in the composition will take part in it, three of them will represent the hostile country. The prize fund will be 10 million rubles. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) has already included a competition in its Official calendarpublished on the FIDE website.
In fact, we are talking about a rather notable event, similar even to a breakthrough.
In 2022, after the start of a military special operation in Ukraine, the domestic sports segment faced a huge number of various kinds of international sanctions. In the sanctions package, all the structure, without exception, included a ban on holding international competitions in Russia. And so far it has been strictly observed. At least it was the top or at least close to the tops that official tournaments did not give the largest world and regional federations of Russia. In this sense, ACF created a precedent.
The Asian Champions League refers precisely to elite tournaments. The fact is that it is Asia that is now the key chess region, if we proceed from the achievements of its representatives. So they own both championship titles: Indian Gukesh Dommaraj – in men, Chinese Tszyu Wenjun – for women. And the first dozen FIDE male rating is more than half consists of grandmasters who perform under the auspices of ACF: there are six of them in it, including Russian Yana Nepomnya.
FSHR before the introduction of sanctions was part of the European Chess Union. However, in 2023, she changed the region, becoming an ACF member. At the same time, Russian chess functionaries did not hide that the meaning of the transition was precisely that the Asian “partners” are much more “loyal and constructive” than “partners from Europe”.
The Executive Director of the FSR Alexander Tkachev, commenting on Kommersant, the provision of Khanty-Mansiysk right to hold the Asian Champions League, noted that the ACF “has its attitude to the current situation”, and “her opinion differs from the European”: “For its leaders,“ Sports outside the policy ”is not empty words.”
Mr. Tkachev emphasized that the application for the organization of the tournament was submitted « for a long time » and studied during the « several months ». During this time, according to him, ACF was convinced that Russia and Khanty-Mansiysk « had forgotten how to arrange big competitions. » Khanty-Mansiysk was previously indeed the center of world chess life, regularly accepting significant tournaments, such as the World Chess Olympiad, the World Cup, and the candidate tournament.
