Chess makes its opening gambit to be Olympic sport
By Marie Woolf, Political Editor
Published: 10 December 2006
It took a few shrewd moves but, at last, it is official: chess is a sport. The change in the UK game’s status has delighted chess clubs, which as sporting bodies now qualify for charitable status and state funding for the first time.
It also opens the door for chess and other games of skill, including bridge, poker and Scrabble, to be recognised as sports. In theory, they could even become Olympic events.
The change in the law, which follows decades of campaigning by fans supported by MPs and peers, was slipped through the Commons by cabinet office minister Ed Miliband, himself a devotee.
Chess is played by more than four million people in Britain and is second only to football in popularity. The game’s image has become edgier recently after lurid allegations surrounding the suicide of junior chess champion Jessie Gilbert.
There were also ugly scenes at the Turin Chess Olympiad last June when the Armenian grand master Levon Aronian was allegedly punched and shoved by British grand master Danny Gormally. The dispute centred around Australian grand master Arianne Caoili, who is described as the Anna Kournikova of chess.
Worldwide, 124 governments recognise chess as a sport but, until now, the UK has stubbornly resisted giving the game official recognition. But Mr Miliband, who made the change in the Charities Bill, which became law last month, said legal distinctions between physical and mental sporting activities were outdated. “The new definition extends to sports or games that involve mental as well as physical aspects,” he said.
The full article can be read here.
Chess is practically dead as a pro sport in England. Most English GMs have day jobs (otherwise they would starve).
I bet that 99.9% of England’s 50m population haven’t even heard of Michael Adams, it’s No. 1 player (mind you, even though he’s a nice guy, he’s a quiet type and hardly a charismatic TV-friendly personality – unlike Nigel Short).
I disagree with chess being second to footy. We have more people who like cricket than chess, although chess is still up there.
By the way, we won the ashes Aussies. Top that! (for you Americans, the ashes are ashes of the stumps we bowl at. They are burned every year after. They are like the stanley cup of cricket)
“Chess is played by more than four million people in Britain and is second only to football in popularity”
football (soccer to you), cricket {sort of like your baseball only more boring?! 🙂 }, rugby (like your version of football), horseracing, dogracing, tennis, even poker – now being promoted on tv channels, enough billboards on the “tube”(=subway train) probably come light years ahead of chess over here…
chess clubs closing (e.g., Powdermill) or seeking cheaper venues (e.g., above a pub=bar) for weekly meetings/games/club nights,matches…
nice to be enthusiastic about it as a sport but it’s not something the average Joe Bloggs is going to switch on to watch on tv or know the rules of or get into, the way he can intuitively understand football, netball, hockey, or even poker…
which is sort of sad, but it’s probably not, culturally, as big a thing here as in, just a guess, parts of eastern Europe or parts of the former Soviet Union???