Together for the Mediterranean Games

City of Rijeka and FIDE for inclusion of chess as sport in the Mediterranean Games

Today in Rijeka's Town Hall an Agreement was signed between the City of Rijeka and the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in which the City of Rijeka obliges itself to give the proposal for including the chess, within its own quota, into the list of sports making part of the Mediterranean Games sports list, while FIDE will support the Rijeka’s candidature for the Mediterranean Games in 2017 or later.

The Agreement was signed by the mayor of the City of Rijeka Vojko Obersnel and FIDE vice-president Georgios Makropoulos. This signing was also attended by ECU president Boris Kutin, president of Chess Club Rijeka Damir Vrhovnik and Head of the Sports Department of the City of Rijeka Veljko Karabaić.

Vrhovnik, Karabic, Obersnel, Makropoulos, Kutin

"For decades now FIDE has been trying to include the chess in the Olympic Games and the international sports family, which would greatly improve the status of top chess players in all countries. Unfortunately, this has not been possible due to a large number of participants at the chess Olympics, where FIDE is more focused on a number of participants than the Olympic slogan „citius, altius, fortius“.

Chess Olympics are still open, without qualifying methods as in other sports, thus a large number of participants would create problems for the organisers. For these reasons, Rijeka's attempt to put chess on the list of sports for the Mediterranean Games with a smaller number of participants, has a great chance to introduce the chess in the sports family and mark a historical step for FIDE," said Vlado Kovačević, GM and journalist.