FIDE official: "Azerbaijan is a pure chess country"

A workshop organized by International Chess Federation (FIDE) was conducted for arbiters in Baku.

Arbiters from 4 countries were updated about innovations and also discussions were made regards Arbiters' duties in the top tournaments, World and European championships as well as in World Chess Olympiads, Report says.

The lecturer of the workshop, Secretary of the FIDE Management Board, International Arbiter Vadim Tsypin (Canada) talked about the main purpose of the event: "After the latest changes in the International Chess Federation all activities are performed in a professional and transparent way. Once Arkady Dvorkovich was elected as a FIDE president, professional principles became the major area of concentration in all fields. Competition schedules are confirmed beforehand, comfortable relationships are created with a chess community. Chess federations do feel a strong support in new decisions. New projects are discussed within a short period of time and immediate feedbacks are provided. At the same time FIDE is focused on arbiter training. Workshops organized in Baku provide them an opportunity for increasing their experience and to receive detailed information regards updates".

He talked about high organizational level of tournaments hold in Azerbaijan: "Azerbaijan is a pure chess country. Reputable chess competitions in your country are organized in an advanced level. For instance, I can mention World Cup hold in 2015, World Chess Olympiad afterwards, annual Vugar Hashimov Memorial Tournaments in Shamkir. Besides this, Azerbaijani chess-players are always winning a victory in individual and team competitions. These achievements are outcomes of Azerbaijani State’s, personally President Ilham Aliyev’s care and attention to the chess. He is always keeping under attention chess-players’ performance in competitions. Mahir Mammadov’s selection as a vise-president to the International Chess Federation who loves chess and worked a lot for the development of chess for years is a consequence of FIDE’s trust to Azerbaijan. From this point of view organization of this workshop in Baku is not a coincidence. The Organization has made a decision to conduct workshops in countries devoted to the preparation of reputable competitions. Because of the credence to the Azerbaijani Chess Federation one of these workshops was entrusted to Baku. Arbiters from 4 countries gained information about new rules and future tournaments as well. Practical session was conducted in English. This workshop provides arbiters opportunities to obtain experience for working in an Olympiad. During the workshop world-level professional, person who put lots of efforts to the development of chess arbiters’ school in Azerbaijan, vise-president of ACF Faig Hasanov shared his experience with participants, answered the questions that were interesting for them".