Antonio hoping for Asiad stint

MANILA, Philippines - Grandmaster Joey Antonio is out of the Philippine team to the forthcoming World Chess Olympiad in Russia but it doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s out of this year’s Asian Games as well.

Antonio was sacked by the National Chess Federation of the Philippines for playing in a couple of tournaments in the United States last month when the NCFP wanted him to join the bigger events at home.

Prospero Pichay, the NCFP president, said his decision to drop Antonio from the RP team stays, and will see to it that the grizzled GM will stop receiving benefits from the Philippine Sports Commission.

As one of the few elite athletes in the national pool, Antonio gets P20,000 a month from the PSC.

Antonio sat down with PSC chairman Richie Garcia the other day, and said he was told that the government agency will first dig deep into the matter before it acts on the NCFP decision.

“The chairman thinks I’m a potential gold medalist in the Asian Games because of my recent performance in the Asian Indoor Games,” said Antonio of the 2009 event in Vietnam where he won the gold in the individual rapid chess.

“The chairman doesn’t see anything wrong on my part because my trip to the US was endorsed and signed by Mr. Pichay himself. The chairman said if they ban me, it’s like giving up on a potential gold.”

Pichay said the decision to remove Antonio from the lineup was for the good of the whole team as he branded the outspoken GM and his “primadona ways” as a perennial problem for the team.

The 16th Asian Games is scheduled in November in Guangzhou, and Antonio said it’s one of only two tournaments he’d worked hard for this year, the other one being this month’s Chess Olympiad.

But he’s out of that team, and now he’s hoping that the NCFP will soften up and include him to the Asian Games lineup.

“The NCFP is the PSC’s partner when it comes to chess development. But I think there was no proper consultation before the NCFP decided to ban Antonio from the Philippine team,” said Garcia.

The PSC chief said the government has invested so much on Antonio, who became a grandmaster in 1993, and dropping him from the RP team without due process may turn out to be a blunder.

“I’ve asked my staff to check Antonio’s records and how much has the PSC spent on him since he started playing chess for the country. We cannot just remove him and forget about our investment,” said Garcia.

He said when Antonio came to him armed with an endorsement letter signed by Pichay for his trip to the US, the PSC approved it because it was written there that it was part of his preparations for the Olympiad and the Asian Games.

“If Mr. Pichay and Joey Antonio had a previous deal, we did not have anything to do with that. If only we were told that the US trip would coincide with the two big tournaments here then we would have denied the request,” Garcia explained.

“Then he was removed from the RP team and I can’t figure out why.”