The 2024 World Chess Championship is set to be feature young Indian sensation, Gukesh Dommaraju and defending champion from China, Ding Liren.
Singapore has been selected to host the match, which will be held later this year from November 20 through to December 15 later this year, according to an announcement made on Monday by FIDE, which is the World Chess Federation body.
MORE: Gukesh D wins the FIDE Candidates tournament
Gukesh won the right to challenge China's Ding Liren at the Championship match after becoming the youngest ever winner of the 2024 FIDE Candidates tournament, at the age of 17.
He will also become the youngest player to ever play in a World Chess Championship match, when he faces Ding Liren, later this year.
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How did Singapore win the bid to host the World Chess Championship 2024 match between Gukesh and Ding Liren?
According to the FIDE statement, the final venues of the match in Singapore will be announced soon and that the prize money has been set at 2.5 million USD (approx. 20.88 Cr):
"Singapore’s bid was submitted on May 31, 2024, and the inspection of the venues took place on June 11 and 12. Four possible venues are being considered for the Match, and the final decision on the exact location will be announced in due course."
The FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich justified the reasons for picking Singapore as the host city for the match, over the likes of Chennai and New Delhi.
"We are delighted that for the first time in the history of FIDE, a match for the World Championship will take place in Singapore. Not only is Singapore one of the most iconic global tourist and business hubs, but it is also a thriving chess center with great ambitions and talent," he said.
“If the bids (for the three cities) are the same, it gives a serious advantage to Singapore. If one or two other bids are much, much higher in all other senses (in terms of guaranteed revenue for FIDE from broadcast and commercial rights) then it compensates for neutrality."
The 15-member FIDE Council used multiple factors to decide the host city of the 2024 World Championship, which included 'neutrality'.
"We look at a multitude of factors, among those that are important is distribution of rights, neutrality, the level of venue, broadcast and other similar things that would allow the match to not only be important by itself, but also allow the chess world to leverage on it to promote the game in terms of chess fans that would start following the game during the world championship,” the FIDE President said.