FIDE - World Chess Federation Online

FIDE - World Chess Federation Online

FIDE is the abbreviation for the World Chess Federation in French, Fédération Internationale des Échecs.

Chess is regarded to be a sport - only those who have never played find this hard to believe (a real chess game can be as exhausting as any other sport) - and FIDE is recognized by the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, as the supreme ruling body for world chess.

FIDE organizes the official world chess championship tournaments and its champions are generally regarded to be the world champions of chess, although in recent years there was a competing organization, the PCA, since disbanded, whose champions were generally accepted as the true world champions. In recent years, the political infighting and wrangling over the world championship of chess has continued, so that there is still no unified world chess champion. Read this report from the Corus Chess Tournament.

For a history of FIDE and the tournaments it organizes, see FIDE and the Wikipedia.