All-India Chess Federation signs historic agreement with MPL

MPL will sponsor all National Championships for next five years

by Prashant Kapadia/NHN

New Delhi, October: The All-India Chess Federation (AICF) has signed a historic agreement with MPL Foundation towards sponsorship of all Indian National Championships for the next five years. The Rs One Crore deal will see the amount being raised by 20% after every year.

Indian chess has been on a roll in recent times. The Women’s Team recently won its first ever Silver Medal in the World Team Championship while the unified squad clinched Bronze in the Online Chess Olympiad prior to that.

AICF president Dr. Sanjay Kapoor hailed this as the dawn of a new era in Indian chess. “We have huge plans for the sport in the country. This is one of the first steps in that direction. We are committed to keep working for the betterment of chess with the vision of making India the Number One Chess-playing nation in the world,” he said.

The MPL Foundation, largely associated with gaming, will be the title sponsors of various National championships across all formats, starting from the Under-7 age groups. They become the first Corporate Sponsor to be associated with the AICF on a long-term basis.

AICF Secretary Bharat Singh Chauhan welcomed MPL into the chess family. “I am proud to say that today we have people who are very committed towards the upliftment of the game, the game has grown many folds in the last one year and this is only the beginning”, he said.

The new team took over AICF this January and since then the most prominent works are as under:

1. Organization of Online Arbiter (Referee) Refresher Courses and development of 500+ arbiters equipped to organise online and over the board events.

2. Training and certification of more than 1200 trainers for Chess in schools program, program was conducted by Grandmaster and International Masters

3. Organization of 28 national level championships online with participation of more than 15,000 players.

4. AICF awarded prize money of 40 Lacs in the National Championships.

5. Creating covid-relief funds for chess fraternity, along with top players from the country like Anand, Koneru Humpy, D. Harika, Vidit Gujarati etc. More than Rs. 13,00,000 have been released to 50+ beneficiaries. 

6. Created a welfare fund of Rs 50,00,000 (fifty lac) for Players and Arbiters for emergency assistance. 

7. The Indian team participated in Online Asian School championships and Western Asian Championships winning 51 medals. 

8. Indian team participated in online world youth championships winning 4 medals

9. Indian team of 12 members under the captainship of V. Anand participated in the Online Chess Olympiad and won the Bronze medal

10. The Indian women’s team created history by winning the silver medal for the country in World Team Chess championships.