14.01.2017

Ilyumzhinov: "I spoke to Trump to support the project "Chess in Schools"

- Kirsan Nikolaevich, how, in your opinion, the election of Donald Trump, the US president may affect the prospects for the global development of sports?

I hope that under Trump's leadership such a great superpower like the United States will less interfere in the affairs of sovereign states and international organizations. That is, everyone will be doing his own thing. We, for example, set a task to increase the number of chess players in the world to one billion by 2020...

 

We also hope that with the help of Trump (I approached him with the suggestion to take the project "Chess in Schools" under his patronage) we will be able to introduce chess in schools curriculum of the United States. There live more than 300 million people and it would be easier for us to achieve our cherished dream.
- Did you personally experience the political interference in sports?
Of course, I saw it first hand. In August 2014, at the FIDE presidential elections in Norway, Tromsø, the US Department of State assisted the former world champion Garry Kasparov. But, thank goodness, we won, 110 countries voted for me and only 60 countries supported Kasparov, who represented interests of individual US politicians.