The Bangladesh Chess Federation (BCF) is trying to convince sponsors to sign up again to support the sport following Bangladesh’s ever-best result in the Chess Olympiad in Istanbul.
Standard Chartered Bank, Mercantile Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank, United Insurance Company, who have a long association with the chess federation, pulled out their sponsorships from School Chess Championship, National Chess Championship, First Division Chess Champions and Grandmasters & International Masters tournaments respectively following the poor relation between the officials and the players as well as lack of transparency of the then ad-hoc committee.
But the newly-elected committee has started to set up fresh ties with those companies after the Bangladesh men’s team produced a best-ever 33rd position in the Chess Olympiad.
“We had a meeting with Standard Chartered Bank on Tuesday and they showed positive signs to come back to school chess. We have been asked to submit our annual programme as well as proposal on school championship,” said BCF vice president Shahabuddin Shamim adding that they would hope to submit all things in the first week of October.
Bitopi Das Chowdhury, head of Corporate Affairs of Standard Charted Bank, said, “Yes, we recently sat with the members of the new committee but the things are in the preliminary stage. We will decide whether to go back to sponsor the school chess after seeing their plans.”
The newly-elected committee has already brought all five grandmasters under an umbrella and declared a hectic schedule in next three months with school championship, junior championship, national championship, women’s national championship, premier division league and first division league to be completed by December 15.
Shamim also informed that the initial contacts with the rest of those sponsor have been set up but the real discussion has not started yet in a bid to reinstate their previous relationship.
-With The Daily Star input
