Thursday
Aug132015
Naiditsch Now Representing Azerbaijan
Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 2:18AM
Tut, tut - the idea of countries buying chess players...just terrible! We'd never do such a thing in the United States, would we? (*Cough*) Anyway, they've done it in Azerbaijan with Arkadij Naiditsch, but to be fair it seems at least as much due to the German Chess Federation's failure to give Naiditsch (and professional chess in general) the sort of support he deemed appropriate, and over a long period of time.
The next chess olympiad is going to be extremely interesting!
tagged Arkadij Naiditsch
Reader Comments (3)
"to be fair it seems at least as much due to the German Chess Federation's failure ..."
To be fair (also) to the German Chess Federation, some of Naiditsch's allegations seem exaggerated to plain wrong. In the most recent interview translated by chess24 and also in earlier German interviews, Naiditsch states that the federation has nothing to do with the Dortmund supertournament - but the tournament site mentions the federation as one of the main sponsors (along with the city of Dortmund, also public i.e. tax money rather than private). In a German interview, he says that there has been only one training camp in ten years - I know from a reliable source (German federation president Herbert Bastian) that Naiditsch declined, at short notice, two invitations for training sessions with Karpov.
Sure, Azerbaijan has oil money and chess is one of the main sports.
It is likely that Dortmund is required to list the German Federation as a sponsor. However, it is well known that Dortmund receives no money from the German federarion. All their money comes from the Sparkessen group that must locally give out a % of money every year.
@Daniel: What are your sources? Why would an event be required to name sponsors - not just one but several - who do not contribute? Granted, some (IT companies, hotel and Mercedes-Benz) may just contribute to logistics. Why only Dortmund, but not the Grenke Chess Classics - where all the money may indeed come from Grenke Leasing, and Wolfgang Grenke doesn't need or "tolerate" other sponsors? Since 2012 (first event under "new" format with several German players) the Dortmund brochures (Programmheft) also mention "in collaboration with the German Chess Federation".
I fail to see why Dortmund should be lying, while Naiditsch has an interest to bend the truth, also in other aspects. In a German interview, he said that there was just one training camp in the last ten years. I checked with the author FM Hartmut Metz who stated that Naiditsch _participated_ in only one training session. But I know from German Chess Federation president Herbert Bastian that Naiditsch has, at short notice, cancelled his participation in two other training sessions with Karpov.