The Al-Ain Chess Club offered to host the newly created World Cities series from 2012 until 2020. The FIDE World Cities Championship shall be held at two-yearly intervals among teams representing cities with a maximum of one city per country. Qualified National Federations are eligible to play with their national team members representing a city. 32 teams shall be divided into 8 groups of 4 teams each according to their seed number. In these pairings teams who play each other in the Group RR are not scheduled to meet again until the final.
A total of $150,000 in cash prizes shall be awarded for the World Cities Championship for the Sheikh Zayed Cup.
