Fide Commerce to sell chess

KOCHI, AUGUST 14: The International Chess Federation Fide has arrived in the market. Fide chief Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a successful busine...

KOCHI, AUGUST 14: The International Chess Federation Fide has arrived in the market. Fide chief Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a successful businessman and President of the Kalmykian Republic Russia, has created a London-based company, Fide Commerce FC, with the idea of marketing chess.

The setting up of FC may on the surface look like a good deal for Fide, which is struggling to attract commercial sponsorship. But the tie-up needs to address some crucial issues.

Chess, potentially a fertile advertising field for corporate computer giants like IBM or Intel, is woefully short of useful sponsorship for its own plum events, the World Championships for men and women, that have now become annual affairs.

FC will represent Fide in all commercial deals and use the parent body8217;s endorsement to seek sponsorship and merchandising agreements. FC8217;s president Artem Tarasov, the creator of Russia8217;s National lottery, is an expert in such deals. Tarasov8217;s chess connections are not known but as long as the FC works in theinterest of Fide, all is well.

The main catch will be the rights to games and tournaments, especially on Internet. Fide8217;s long-cherished dream of copyrighting chess games and licensing game scores is bound to rankle a section of the chess fraternity.

8220;Ilyumzhinov is committed to hosting the knockout World Championships for 10 years,8221; says Fide vice-president Ummer Koya, who is leaving for Las Vegas later this month to take part in a Fide meeting to discuss several key issues after the current World Championship.

The 10-year contract may be a puzzle as the term of the Fide president is only for four years, but the arrival of the company makes it feasible to organise the Fide events even if he goes out of office.

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THE STICKY ISSUE OF COPYRIGHTING GAMES: Chess -Planet, owned by former Fide secretary Casto Abundo, was possibly the medium Fide had in mind when it thought of marketing its wares globally. Abundo had, in an interview to The Indian Express in Kozhikode, disclosed details of acopyrighting deal, which was supposed to benefit the professional Grandmaster in the long run. A part of the fee charged for selling the rights of games was to go to the owner player.

However, Fide will shut itself from the public and the Press through its licensing act. The danger is that chess, already short of media publicity, will suffer in the coverage of its tournaments, if Fide were to impose commercial restraints on its events.

American GM Yasser Seirawan, always a player8217;s representative, has advocated that Fide should, instead of curbing the publication of games by charging columnists, journalists, newspapers and magazines, send out news releases free of cost in the hope that they would be published.The focal point of all its commercial run for sponsorship is that Ilyumzhinov has perhaps decided that chess was eating into his coffers without really rewarding his political or business ambitions.

If he succeeds, the better for chess. Or else, chess will enter the 21st century in a chaoticstate.