The vice-president of Nigeria Chess Federation (NCF), Adeyinka Adewole has unfolded two approaches through which the sport can expand and be developed further in the country, Sports247 reports.
Adewole reckoned that the proper development of chess in Nigeria can be boosted by hosting major competitions or through sending the country’s best players out to feature on the global tour.
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He reckoned further that, though Nigeria already ranks very high across Africa’s West Coast, it is only through regular and active participation in top rated competitions globally that proper progress can be ascertained for the country’s players.
Adewole begun, “We are proud in West Africa today, because we believe we have a high rating there. But, in the whole of Africa, we are not there yet. We need to play internationally by either organising tournaments here in Nigeria or taking our players out to fearure in top contests.”
However, Adewole went on to note that hosting competitions depends on a lot of factors, among which would be the provision of benefits for invited players, while taking the country’s stars overseas to feature in major competitions is equally expensive.
He added, “We could invite people with high ratings, usually title players, international masters, grandmasters … let’s invite them to come and play in this country.
“There’s need for a lot of attractions. We need to motivate them with good prizes, good playing conditions and so on like that.”
He concluded by analysing the other route towards enhanced development of chess in Nigeria and pointed out that it would equally be expensive to send the country’s best players out to compete on the international circuit.
“If we can not afford to have an international competition in Nigeria, let’s have a set of elite players that we can send abroad … send to Europe or maybe US to go and play top competitions.
But it’s rather expensive to send players out. Those two ways, though, are the routes through which we can develop,” Adewole affirmed.
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