Timur Turlov shared his opinion on the number of members on the FIDE team in an interview with Dina Belenkaya. Turlov says he wants to increase the number of people in the organization, and notes that FIDE should be a coordinator for national federations.

Timur Turlov

Timur Turlov

President of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation

“I will bring a lot of new team members to FIDE. And we will increase the amount of people who will work with FIDE. This is needed to manage a bigger digital transformation program, to manage the development fund. We will need more resources.

But the role of FIDE is not to become a superpower. We need to be a coordinator and to be a body which will help national federations to emerge. And I’m still sure that the national federation should be the center of chess in their countries.

We just need to enable these national federations, not to try to build FIDE who will do everything everywhere. So, we are committed to work in each country only through our federation’s members.”

The FIDE President election 2026 will take place at the General Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan from September 26 to 27. Timur Turlov is a Russian-born Kazakh entrepreneur and CEO of Freedom Holding Corp. Turlov has served as the president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation since January 2023.

Credit: Mark Livshitz / FIDE