Chess Players Forum urged FIDE to resolve AICF problems.

All India Chess Federation has been tapped in legal battles as referring to the state of affairs. The president of Chess Players Forum Varugeese Koshy wrote to the chief of FIDE, and requesting to solve his problem.

The Chess Players Forum has always been a voice of all the player’s rights, welfare and responsibilities and urged world federation to solve the problems in the affairs of national body.

In the letter, Koshy wrote, “On behalf of all the chess players of India, the Chess Players Forum hereby wishes to appeal to the FIDE to step in and resolve the crisis in the affairs of the AICF. We assure that the Chess Players Forum will be ready to assist in whichever manner in any such initiative.”

Koshy further wrote,” Since December 2019, the AICF has been on a course of fighting, seemingly without any genuine reason, resulting in expensive mutual litigation. Currently, two factions of AICF claim by themselves to be the ‘genuine’ organisation, with two different websites and email addresses, each claiming to be ‘official.’ This is apart from projecting two different presidents, secretaries and other office-bearers to add to the pandemonium.”

The AICF was divided into two parts, the first one is one headed by the chairman of Ramco Group, PR Venketrama Raja and the second one by Bharat Singh Chauhan, who have took the federation elections to the court.

The forum said that “it was alarming to observe that FIDE seems to have suspended the regular functioning of the organisation itself, listing the body as under dispute between two parties.”

The forum wrote,” We are also alarmed to observe that the FIDE have suspended the regular functioning of the organisation itself, listing the body as under dispute between two parties in your official directory. Considering that India is one of the emerging superpowers of chess in the world, this state-of-affairs is painful and despicable.”

AICF is funded by the government of India and it is administrative body of the Chess in India. The forum added “There are almost about 1,00,000 chess players registered at the AICF, and all of them along with state associations, tournament organisers, and chess lovers are groping in the dark now due to this state-of-affairs.”

Varugeese Koshy, Barua, Kunte, Saravanan and WGM Swati Ghate are the founding member of the Chess Players Forum and there are some other members of the forum are Grandmasters Vidit Gujrathi, B Adhiban, Surya Sekhar Ganguly, Abhijeet Gupta, Dronavali Harika, Easha Karvade and Soumya Swaminathan.