FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich told TASS what they discussed with the FIFA President Gianni Infantino at their meeting in Zurich on January 24th.

First of all, we discussed the FIFA support aimed at the growth of the professional level of our employees in the spheres where FIDE has been weaker than FIFA during the last couple of years: marketing, finances and corporate management. We have a new team and FIFA has kindly agreed to assist us to upscale the professional level and staff qualifications, to organize workshops which will enable FIDE to improve the quality of the services provided.

Second direction is the work with Academies in various countries. We have agreed that the countries with an established level of competence and opportunities should become centers of our cooperation, where chess would be included in the programme of the football academies so that young football players could benefit from chess to increase their level, technical thinking and analytical skills.

Chess players nowadays should keep themselves very fit, in order to stay on top. We also discussed digital technologies as FIFA has recently created a digital transformation department and as FIDE has a similar structure, therefore we have agreed to create digital platforms.