Singapore makes bid to host World Chess Championship
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Chinese chess grandmaster Ding Liren, pictured against Magnus Carlsen during the Norway Chess 2024, will face Indian challenger Gukesh Dommaraju at the world championship.
PHOTO: AFP
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SINGAPORE – Singapore has thrown its hat into the ring in the bid to host the World Chess Championship, which is provisionally scheduled for Nov 20 to Dec 15.
On June 1, the International Chess Federation (Fide) revealed on social media that three host cities have submitted their bids for the event, which will feature China’s world champion Ding Liren going up against Indian challenger Gukesh Dommaraju.
The other two cities are India’s New Delhi and Chennai, the latter being the home town of Gukesh.
Gukesh, 18, is the youngest challenger for the world title in history and earned his spot to face Ding by winning the 2024 Candidates Tournament in Toronto in April.
Chennai last hosted the world championship in 2013, when Norwegian challenger Magnus Carlsen dethroned home favourite and holder Viswanathan Anand.
Fide said on its website: “All three bids will be discussed at the upcoming Fide Council meeting scheduled for next week.
“The representatives of all three bids will be invited to the meeting to share more details and answer questions. The final decision will be made by the Fide Council later this month.”
The Singapore Chess Federation (SCF) had previously expressed its interest to host Fide’s marquee event on May 6.
Fide’s chief executive, grandmaster Emil Sutovsky, told ChessBase India that officials are all “so excited” to be receiving multiple bids.
He added: “It was a moment of truth, because even till the last moment we didn’t know the number of bids that we would be receiving. We’ve got three bids, and (they are) all are very serious bids, I think it is a record number in recent history.
“All of the bids are backed by relevant guarantees and by government support as well, so these are all profound ones.”
SCF chief executive Kevin Goh previously said that the federation is consulting a few parties from the private and government sectors “to see whether a bid is feasible”.
One of the issues it needed to resolve was the US$8.5 million (S$11.5 million) hosting budget, of which US$2.5 million will be used for prize money, US$1.1 million to Fide for licensing fees and the rest for venue and organising costs.
On Singapore’s interest to host the tournament, Sutovsky added: “Singapore has done a tremendous preparation for this bid, I’ve been in constant touch with Kevin...
“I can tell that Singapore is aiming to leverage on its geographical location and multi-cultural society, so it is natural for them to want to host the match.”
Singapore has a growing chess scene and boasts five grandmasters and one woman grandmaster.
Siddharth Jagadeesh on May 21 became the youngest Singaporean grandmaster at 17
He hopes to see the event come to Singapore, adding: “It’ll be very exciting if that happens, and it’d be a great boost to the game throughout the country, because it’s the most prestigious tournament in chess and it has a long history, longer than many sports.”
When contacted, national agency Sport Singapore said: “Under Sport Singapore’s major sport event strategy, we seek to bring in different types of sports to cater to the wide range of interests that the community has.
“Singapore Chess Federation’s bid to host the Fide World Chess Championships will add vibrancy to our local sporting calendar and elevate the profile of mind sports within our local community. We are looking forward to possibly having the world’s best chess players compete on our shores.”
