As azerisport.com reports, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov headed the International Chess Federation for 23 years and has visited Azerbaijan many times. His last visit took place in April, when the head of FIDE arrived in Shamkir to join the 5th Vugar Gashimov Memorial. He always praised high competitions held in our country, and called the 2016 Olympics in Baku the best in history. Ilyumzhinov always noted that Azerbaijan is one of the advanced chess countries and has a state programme to develop this sport.

An interesting event occurred during the 2015 World Cup in Baku, when Sergey Karjakin was losing to Peter Svidler after the first two games in the final. After he opened the competition, the head of FIDE went to Monaco, where the Women's Grand Prix of FIDE started. Returning to Baku, he said that the tournament participants unanimously asked him to stay in Monaco: "Even during the opening of the Grand Prix, the chess players unanimously supported Karjakin. They also tried to persuade me: "Kirsan Nikolaevich, you better stay in Monaco to watch the second round games. Everything is pretty clear in Baku already." But I returned to the capital of Azerbaijan, and it turned out that the struggle was continuing and the name of the winner was still unknown." In the end, Karjakin was able to equalize the score against Svidler beating him on a tie-break.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was re-elected for another term during the Olympics in Troms in 2014, when he won the election against Garry Kasparov. But in November next year, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on FIDE President. Temporarily, he handed over the responsibility for FIDE's financial activities to Vice-President George Makropoulos.
Ilyumzhinov withdrew his candidacy on the eve of FIDE presidential elections in favour of Russian Arkady Dvorkovich. The Vice-President of the Federation Makropoulos and the well-known English grandmaster Nigel Short also run for Fide President. The elections will be held in Batumi on 3 October.