Rwanda’s national Chess team has missed out on a chance to represent the country at the 44th World FIDE Chess Olympiad which is underway in India since Thursday, July 28.
The development came as a huge blow for the local chess fraternity, especially the national chess federation whose president Ben Tom Zimurinda accuses the Ministry of Sports (MINISPORTS) of unfairly blocking the national Chess team from participating in the tournament.
"We wrote to the Ministry of Sports on many occasion informing them about the tournament while requesting for facilitation to represent the country but they ignored the request and instead told us that the no one is allowed to represent the country at the tournament because the federation committee is not recognized,” Zimurinda said in a press statement on Wednesday, July 27.
Chess players during the National Chess Championship that was held at Kigali Public Library in December, 2020. Since then the Federation has been embroiled in scandals that culminated in the team failing to make it for this year’s Chess Olympiad. Photo: File.
However, Zimurinda argued that he does not understand why the committee is not recognized yet it was elected by federation members on December 20, 2021.
"All this shows how unfair the Ministry of Sports has been towards the federation and it affected Rwandan players who missed out on a chance to represent the country yet they worked for it,” he further claimed.
MINISPORTS, however, says they could not proceed with the request made by the members of the committee which is not recognized after their administration was suspended from office until further notice.
The national Chess Federation has for the past year been embroiled in a dispute over issues related to alleged mismanagement and fraudulent behavior by some members.
This led to the arrest of the federation’s boss Zimurinda over accusations that include embezzlement of funds.
Didier Shema Maboko, the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary said that the federation, since last year, is supposed to first to put their house in order and put an end to persistent problems in administration, mismanagement of funds and fundamental problems related to regulations governing the chess teams that shaped the federation over the past few months.
"They wrote to the Ministry requesting for support but did not specify the kind of support they exactly wanted and furthermore to that we could not recognize a letter from a person who is not eligible to represent the federation anymore,” he explained.
"As the Ministry of Sports, we don’t recognize the committee and I personally had a chat with the members of the committee and briefed them that they should stop whatever they were doing because they are not recognized,” he added.
The chess federation’s executive committee and all chess activities are currently suspended until further notice and MINISPORTS tasked the national Olympic Committee to look into the issues and find a solution.
Concerning the national team, Shema said the Ministry questioned the team selection after learning that there are a number of players who were selected from ‘ghost’ teams because they are not recognized anywhere.
He said it’s a big loss for the country to miss out on such a big chess tournament but added that the team was not adequately prepared.
"Why would we send a team to represent the country yet it is not prepared and has players who come from teams that do not exist? What we want is the federation to be better organised and the rest will be fine,” he said.