18-10-2012, 04:57 PM
Alex's last post is, I think, the most important point: getting reclassified as a sport may be the worst thing that could happen.
I looked into this a little when we did Rampant Chess and were wanting to wrap the proceeds in some kind of charitable trust structure. That was a while ago and the rules vary UK v Scotland but regardless of the details my opinion is as follows:
Currently Chess sits within the 'Education' bucket (and hence has to fight for funds in cometition with other educational activites) and legal reclassification would push it into the 'Sport' bucket (where it would have to fight for funds in conjunction with other sports).
The problem is that even if chess was *legally* recognised as a sport it is never (well, most likely never) going to be *culturally* recognised as a sport in the UK - not by the man in the street and certainly not by the funding directors of sport budgets who are likely to be people who have spend much of their lives running and jumping about! This is not to say there may not be some advantages (University funding maybe, VAT rules etc) but there is a huge risk that this backfires.
The difference between UK and somwehere like India is that, in the later, Chess is recognised legally and culturally as a sport so the problem disappears.
In short, trying to have chess legally recognised as a sport is, in my opinion, a bad idea as it will require enormous amounts of lobbying and if achieved could put us in a worse situtation than before.
Obviously this is just my own opinion and I have been wrong before: In 1986 I though I'd made a mistake, of course it turns out I was right all along but I was wrong to think that I was wrong... =)
Keith
I looked into this a little when we did Rampant Chess and were wanting to wrap the proceeds in some kind of charitable trust structure. That was a while ago and the rules vary UK v Scotland but regardless of the details my opinion is as follows:
Currently Chess sits within the 'Education' bucket (and hence has to fight for funds in cometition with other educational activites) and legal reclassification would push it into the 'Sport' bucket (where it would have to fight for funds in conjunction with other sports).
The problem is that even if chess was *legally* recognised as a sport it is never (well, most likely never) going to be *culturally* recognised as a sport in the UK - not by the man in the street and certainly not by the funding directors of sport budgets who are likely to be people who have spend much of their lives running and jumping about! This is not to say there may not be some advantages (University funding maybe, VAT rules etc) but there is a huge risk that this backfires.
The difference between UK and somwehere like India is that, in the later, Chess is recognised legally and culturally as a sport so the problem disappears.
In short, trying to have chess legally recognised as a sport is, in my opinion, a bad idea as it will require enormous amounts of lobbying and if achieved could put us in a worse situtation than before.
Obviously this is just my own opinion and I have been wrong before: In 1986 I though I'd made a mistake, of course it turns out I was right all along but I was wrong to think that I was wrong... =)
Keith