A special budget to develop media professionals by FIDE? A dinner with Timur Turlov

📅 Sep 23, 2026 Aditya Sur Roy 11 MIN 1918 VIEWS 9 SEGMENTS · 4 SPEAKERS

On the rest day of the FIDE 46th Chess Olympiad Samarkand 2026, a special dinner was arranged by the team of Timur Turlov who is one of the presidential candidate for the FIDE Presidential elections. The GyanMaster Aditya Sur Roy was invited to the dinner to have a special opportunity to meet and interact with Timur. Watch the video as Timur explains his thoughts of how he wants to make a difference in the chess world. #chess #fide #media #samarkand #olympiad

What Timur Turlov said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Timur Turlov, CEO of Freedom Holding Corp. and candidate for FIDE president, spoke at a media dinner during the 2026 Chess Olympiad in Samarkand. He argued chess is experiencing a growth moment, citing FIDE's largest-ever single sponsorship contract with Salesforce and the presence of Google as a previous sponsor. Turlov emphasized that chess attracts a community of intellectual and wealthy people, making it an attractive sponsorship opportunity for corporations and countries wanting a 'smart' image. He proposed a media development fund to help member federations build media skills, arguing that content is the main product of sports federations and key to financial sustainability. He highlighted his success in making the Kazakhstan Chess Federation popular and expressed confidence in winning the election, citing strong delegate support. He also mentioned plans for open tournaments, coaching, arbiters, and subsidizing travel for young talents.

Key takeaways

Turlov is confident of winning the FIDE presidency, citing strong support from delegates after meetings and a lunch.
He introduced a media development fund to help all FIDE member federations build media departments and skills.
He cited FIDE's largest-ever single sponsorship contract with Salesforce as evidence of chess's growth.
He credited his work in Kazakhstan for making its chess federation one of the most popular in the country.

Chapters

0:00Chess growth and sponsorship
7:39Media development fund proposal
9:24Kazakhstan chess success
10:40Election confidence and support

Questions asked in this interview

1:58join me tonight. You want me to go?

Timur Turlov 0:00 ↗

We see how multiple companies are joining FIDE on the sponsorship side. We see how budgets are growing, and we see the growth in online gaming, so there are hundreds of millions of players.

Aditya Suraoy 0:35 ↗

Hello everyone. This is the Gyan Master, Aditya Suraoy, and yesterday was the first and the only break day at the FIDE Olympiad 2026. And I was indeed very grateful to be invited to the dinner party of the media interaction with Timur Turlov, who is running for presidency. I got to know a lot more about his vision and his mission about being a president and what he is doing currently in Kazakhstan, and how Kazakhstan chess is growing and it looks good. It felt good that he spoke a lot about how media is so important, and I felt that there are so many opportunities coming up for people who are going to take journalism or content creation in the world of chess as a future, and there are people out there thinking about it. As the only representative from India, I had to ask him about what are his thoughts about the development of grassroots-level chess in India and also Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which are upcoming countries. He shared his plans. He had some amazing initiatives that are coming up, and I'm very hopeful that people like him can make a real difference in the world of chess. And as of now, I could not interact with the other candidates. I really wish to do so, but wishing everyone all the best. And you can see the part of the dinner and also his speech at the dinner party. So enjoy.

3 more exchanges in this transcript

Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX

APA

Turlov, T. (2026, September 23). A special budget to develop media professionals by FIDE? A dinner with Timur Turlov [Interview transcript]. Aditya Sur Roy. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3023558/

MLA

Timur Turlov. "A special budget to develop media professionals by FIDE? A dinner with Timur Turlov." Aditya Sur Roy, 23 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3023558/.

BibTeX

@misc{turlov2026_3023558,
  author       = {Timur Turlov},
  title        = {A special budget to develop media professionals by FIDE? A dinner with Timur Turlov},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Aditya Sur Roy. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {sep},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3023558/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}

▶

Key Quotes (1)

“We believe that if each federation will pay including FIDE will pay much more attention to media, that will make chess much more financially sustainable. Because for each government much easier to support a popular federation. For each corporation, for each marketing department of corporation will be much easier convincing the senior management and board of directors if they supporting a popular s”

▶ 7:41 POLICY

Mentioned in this interview

Salesforce CRM: Signed the biggest ever single sponsorship contract with FIDE.

Google: Sponsored the previous world championship match.

Kazakhstan Chess Federation: Became one of the most popular federations in the country due to Turlov's efforts.

Earlier, on the same topics

“Actually, every national federation, every active national federation is usually have to govern a very big amount of tournaments, players, arbiters, coaches, and of course, you need a good CRM platform to manage all of them. So, you need a strong digital platform for different reasons to better unde”

Aug 11, 2026 at 2:49 →

“I want to develop digital platform and help for all the national became much more digital to make feeder more efficient and fast and to let each national federation to manage precisely their players, chess clubs, arbiters, align this calendar with all the global events, get access to best learning m”

Aug 16, 2026 at 10:00 →

“I think some of them so we will focus on digitalization of FIDE. We need more advancements especially in the digital world to help to get all federation CRM system to manage chess clubs, chess players, arbiters, coaches, all the process, and at the same time to provide more visibility in media side.”

Aug 22, 2026 at 3:38 →

“It's very simple. To actually get some global exposure to chess, as you seen it still could be a contract with single million of dollars, and it will be a very good visibility on a global scale in like almost a year long time. And which other kind of sport can get you some the same results? Because ”

Sep 21, 2026 at 25:05 →

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About Timur Turlov

Timur Turlov, CEO of Freedom Holding and president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, was elected President of FIDE in September 2026. In the lead-up to the election, he outlined a platform focused on financial sustainability, grassroots development, and digitalization. He proposed a development fund to support smaller federations through open tournaments, travel subsidies, and coaching access, and emphasized the importance of media development to make chess more commercially viable. Turlov also stated his intention to rely on Viswanathan Anand for expertise in sport-related policy and to provide a financial backstop from his corporation to enable a two-year event calendar. During the campaign, Turlov discussed his personal history with chess, noting that his grandfather taught him the game at age five and that he returned to it when his children began learning. He described chess as a tool for understanding his own decision-making processes and said he plays with his children on weekends. In interviews, he addressed geopolitical topics, stating he was proud to be a citizen of Kazakhstan and that he had renounced his Russian citizenship and disposed of business operations in Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine. He also called for the war to end as soon as possible and said his role at FIDE would be to unite the chess community.

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