FIDE Council approves CSR guidelines
The fund-raiser that is organized alongside the World Corporate Championship connects perfectly with a recent decision by FIDE. Last week, the FIDE Council approved our Corporate Social Responsibility guidelines, a document that has now been incorporated into the FIDE Handbook. Essentially, CSR is a self-regulating business model that incorporates social and environmental concerns into a company’s planning and operations. The goal is to ensure that all of its activities positively affect society as a whole. This management concept goes beyond a company’s legal obligations, and it aims at making a company socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. In recent years, the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly prevalent, also in the field of sports. By definition, sports federations already play a social role, bringing positive effects to society. However, their professionalization and growing commercialism make necessary the establishment of mechanisms of self-regulation from a social perspective, to ensure that they stay loyal to their foundational values. FIDE, established as a non-profit sports organization, will now have these core values more present than ever before. A task force will oversee this area of work, thanks to an initiative impulse by our treasurer Zhu Chen. “The initial idea of bringing CSR to FIDE is to care for all the stakeholders in the chess world and improve the chess ecosystem. And I wish that CSR is a small step towards approaching HSR (human social responsibility). In the long term, the intention is to improve the imperfect system that humanity evolved through the long history, to be kind to human, every living creature, and nature”.
Tribute to Liu Wenzhe
A couple of weeks ago, the FIDE Trainers Commission (TRG) announced the awards for 2020 and 2021. The categories have now been expanded to 10 so that every licensed trainer now has the opportunity to win an award and be recognized by their peers. One of the newly created awards bears the name of Liu Wenzhe (1940-2011), the pioneer and leader of China’s chess over four decades. Liu, born in Harbin, was from childhood a Xiangqi and Go player, but in his late teen years, he took a serious interest in Western chess, something that was very uncommon in that period. He soon rose to achieve the consideration of China’s leading player, and in 1961 he also established himself as a chess coach, so he could train others in the game that had captivated him. Already in his international chess debut in 1965, in a friendly match between China and the Soviet Union, he became the sensation. His victory against Nikolai Krogious was the first victory of a Chinese player against a grandmaster – at least in an official game. But it was only at the Buenos Aires Olympiad in 1978 with his spectacular crush of Nederland’s Jan Donner (a miniature named “The Chinese Immortal”) that the whole world took notice of his talent. Liu Wenzhe – Jan Hein Donner (Buenos Aires, 1978) 16. Qxg6!! Kxg6 17. Bh5+ Kh7 18. Bf7+ Bh6 19. g6+ Kg7 20. Bxh6+ 1-0 In 1980, he was awarded the International Master title, the first FIDE title of any kind for a Chinese player. Liu won the National Championship in 1980 and 1982, and he continued to be the main force of the Chinese team in 1978, 1980, and 1982 Olympiads. In 1986, he was named the first-ever head coach of the national team. From that moment on, Liu Wenzhe retired completely from competitive chess to focus on developing the system explained in his book “The Chinese School of Chess”, of which he is considered to be the founder. That school would eventually take his country to the top of world chess: Liu Wenzhe still lived when China won the first silver medal at a chess Olympiad (Turin, 2006), but unfortunately, he passed away before China’s sensational gold at Tromsø 2014.