A Strategic Visit from TSF President Fethi Apaydın to the THY Sports Club
Turkish Chess Federation President Fethi Apaydın met with Turkish Airlines Sports Club General Manager Yavuz Kapuz to evaluate the club’s chess activities and future cooperation opportunities. The visit stood out not merely as a courtesy meeting between institutions, but as a noteworthy contact in terms of bringing chess to wider audiences in Turkey.
During the meeting, topics such as grassroots development, support for young athletes, strengthening club organizations, and expanding chess across different age groups are understood to have come to the forefront. In recent years, growing interest in chess in Turkey among both school-age children and adults has made contact between the federation and strong institutional stakeholders even more important. Meetings of this kind contribute not only to a richer tournament calendar, but also to the grassroots spread of the sport and the expansion of the pool of qualified players.
Turkish Airlines’ support for chess stands out as a long-term investment in the development of sports culture, going beyond sponsorship alone. Such support is of great importance for making chess more visible in Turkey, strengthening club structures, increasing the number of licensed athletes, and launching new organizations. In particular, a structure in which clubs play an active role is regarded as one of the fundamental elements of the chess ecosystem in terms of players’ rating development, regular match practice, and raising the level of competition.
The message conveyed by the federation through this contact is clear: the development of chess is possible not only through federation activities, but also through the joint efforts of public support, sponsor contributions, and club organizations. Fethi Apaydın’s visit to the THY Sports Club can be seen as a concrete reflection of this understanding. While the Turkish Chess Federation thanks stakeholders who contribute to ensuring that chess reaches every segment of society and to building a stronger sporting structure, expectations are also growing for more similar collaborations in the coming period.