CHENNAI: FIDE vice president and Grandmaster Nigel Short has revealed that the apex global governing body of chess could witness its Presidential board size reduced from 26 to 16 members amongst sweeping changes expected to take place in the medium to long term for better administration of the game, IANS reports.
“We have been in office for the past three months. We have taken a number of steps. “The recent feeling is that the FIDE Presidential Board is much too large. We have 26 people in the Presidential Board. It is very costly to hold a meeting. It is not efficient.
“The ideal size for the Presidential Board will be 16 which will also be representative for all the regions.” Short was quoted as saying to IANS.
The board is in charge of the day-to-day management of the FIDE and any change to be adopted in it requires two-third votes in the General Assembly, which will not be done with through proxies for the first time ever. Abolishing proxies for the future has been decided upon, keeping in mind that various national federations have misused it for their own purposes in the past.
Short also confirmed that the FIDE could bag sponsorship deals in the near future with an unnamed European automobile company and few Russian businesses, enhancing corporate investment in chess. This will significantly change the governing body’s age old revenue model of relying almost entirely on funds from national federations.
FIDE has taken the initiative to slash those funds by 40% starting this year and instead aim to provide support to them through target-based performance, holding them accountable too.
“The overall fee income for FIDE has been slashed by about 40 per cent. Under the previous management, FIDE did not have corporate sponsorship. It got 92 per cent of its revenues through fees and other charges and the balance eight per cent from sponsors. This model is nothing but a ‘rent seeking model’ and one of the reasons for holding chess back.
“Normally sporting bodies get sponsorship funds. It would be distributed to national federations. For a long time in FIDE, it was the other way around.
“We have started in a small way with a few federations. These federations will receive financial support only if they meet certain targets. We don’t have a blue print on how federations are to be run as the federations have different management models – office bearers elected by individual members/clubs. But federations have to meet certain minimum standards,” Short signed off.
