CHENNAI: Putting an end to years of internal fighting, the All-India Chess Federation (AICF) and the breakaway Chess Association of India have merged into one single entity to administer the sport in the country.AICF president Sanjay Kapoor revealed at a press conference in Lucknow on Saturday that all the warring factions have now come together under the umbrella of the AICF.
“I have personally had several rounds of talks with all the stakeholders and have brought everybody on the same platform for the development of chess and all the chess players in the country,” Kapoor said.
“Like other federations, we too are struggling to organise our annual events and championships due to the Covid pandemic and could not afford to let our internal differences derail the sport even more,” he added.
As has been well-documented in recent years, Indian chess has been hampered by infighting of administrators in the past. “Once we formed the new body, one of our first goals was to address all the concerns of every member and bring everybody together for the sake of the sport,” AICF secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan said.
On Saturday, AICF also tied up with Kalinga University in Bhubaneswar to launch a top-class academy — Avijai Chess Academy — for chess. The federation, under its current set of office-bearers, had announced a number of plans and initiatives to revitalise chess in the country. But the Covid pandemic affected their plans.
“We are eager to launch at least some of our key initiatives at the earliest and are waiting for the conditions in the country to improve to get cracking,” Kapoor said. “That hasn’t stopped us from tying up with the Kalinga University in Bhubaneshwar to set up India’s first state of the art academy for chess,” he added.