Translated material
To your board
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has headed the world chess kingdom for the eleventh year. Mr. Ilyumzhinov is a multimillionaire or billionaire whose personal wealth exceeds the budget of Kalmykia, which he has ruled for even longer than world chess. The only Russian to head an international sports federation, he replaced the Filipino Florencio Campomanes, who caused unprecedented discord in the chess world, in 1995. World chess then resembled world professional boxing - that is, it did not have one generally recognized world champion, it split into “versions,” and the best player on the planet in those years, Garry Kasparov, left FIDE, founding his own Grandmasters Association. There were very few commercial tournaments so that grandmasters, with the exception of seven to ten leading ones, could make a living from chess.
Ten years after the start of the “Ilyumzhinov era”, FIDE can again boast of having an absolute world champion. True, championships are now held on a knockout system, like some Stanley Cup in the National Hockey League. Because of this, from time to time, people like Russian Alexander Khalifman or Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomarev, who are completely random in terms of the scale of chess talent, become world champions. There is still no coherent system of commercial competitions; chess super-tournaments and team Olympics are held in empty or half-empty halls. And the relative popularity of chess is maintained largely due to the charisma of great players, of which, after the departure of Garry Kasparov, there are essentially two left - the phenomenal Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and the Indian Viswanathan Anand. Vladimir Kramnik, for all his mighty talent, is not so charismatic and active.
Compared to other spectacular sports, and chess is undoubtedly one of them, they still look pathetic from a commercial point of view.
And yet, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov won the FIDE presidential election with 96 votes against 57 from his rival, the Dutch businessman Bessel Kok. Mr. Kok is no less famous figure in the chess world than Mr. Ilyumzhinov. It was Kok who, together with Garry Kasparov and the players who joined him, created an alternative to FIDE, the Association of Grandmasters, which made very good money. His business abilities undoubtedly surpass those of Ilyumzhinov. He was supported by the greatest of the great, Garry Kasparov, in an open letter to the participants of the elected congress. All the leading chess federations - all of Western Europe and the USA - supported him. But the third world and Asia, whose male grandmasters, with the exception of Vishy Anand, no one knows, where only China is strong in women’s chess, supported Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Thus, the third world protested against globalization and the total commercialization of sports. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov is a familiar leader; with him everything is clear and predictable. Chess may live on the outskirts of public interest, but still it is not torn apart by such scandals that would threaten to completely erode its status as a professional sport. Yes, Bessel Kok could attract new sponsors and even make FIDE a decent commercial organization. Yes, the best chess players in the world, and not only those from the top ten, might have a chance to earn regular income in this profession. But the third world, which does not produce great players and does not have a powerful chess school, preferred to deal with the current situation of moderate stagnation.
Chess is a specific sport, and Garry Kasparov is born no more often than Pele or Ronaldinho in football. But while football has become a huge global business industry, chess remains a haven for lone eccentrics. Perhaps this blatant discrepancy with the trends of the times has its own charm. But Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who turned elite chess into banal playoff series anyway, is hardly suitable for the role of keeper of traditions. It’s just that he belongs on the board for outsiders of the chess world. In addition, the third world has so little chance of deciding anything in global issues of the development of human civilization that they can at least win back at chess. Prove that the majority can be overwhelming regardless of the quality of the result obtained.