The primary week of February noticed the chess world caught up in controversy because the Freestyle Chess Gamers Membership failed to achieve an settlement with FIDE over organising their very own world championship event. The FCPC obtained official recognition from the worldwide physique simply earlier than 2024’s year-ending World Speedy and Blitz Championship.
FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky spoke on the Freestyle Chess controversy.
In an official assertion by FCPC, it was revealed that that they had obtained official recognition and talks have been being held over organising a Freestyle World Championship. In the meantime, after his notorious denims scandal in New York, Magnus Carlsen, who additionally co-owns FCPC, accused FIDE of threatening gamers from collaborating within the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
Hindustan Occasions contacted Freestyle Chess co-owner Jan Henric Buettner, and the German entrepreneur revealed that he was about to achieve an settlement with FIDE. He added that he was in fixed contact with president Arkady Dvorkovich. Quick ahead to February 3, when FIDE launched an announcement saying that no settlement was reached between each events on official recognition for a world championship.
In response, Freestyle Chess launched an open public letter to FIDE demanding Dvorkovich’s resignation. FIDE launched one other assertion asking gamers to signal a waiver word by February 4, 10:30 PM IST. The waiver word was about their non-participation at FCPC’s non-FIDE-recognised world championship. The clock was ticking, after which Freestyle Chess eliminated any point out of the world championship from their guidelines and laws on the official web site.
Their preliminary plan was to call the ultimate Freestyle Chess leg in South Africa because the World Championship. Then even in a collection of movies launched on Take Take Take utility, co-owned by Carlsen once more, the World No. 1 spoke on the difficulty and revealed his dislike for classical chess. He additionally claimed that the youthful gamers had admitted to it, which led their nationwide federations to fret that they might be banned from the World Championship cycle. He additionally remarked that the youthful gamers stated that FIDE are threatening their future.
In an unique dialog with Hindustan Occasions, FIDE CEO and grandmaster Emil Sutovsky cleared the air on the latest controversy, and had a contrasting tackle the so-called youthful gamers. Among the many youthful gamers, we’ve got the reigning world champion D Gukesh, who’s a member of FCPC.
On D Gukesh, youthful chess GMs alleged Freestyle Chess help…
“Yes, I have to say that in general, the narrative of younger chess players, be it the Indian or be it Abdusattorov, for example, is very clear that they see the World Championship and FIDE cycle in general as the most important thing. I think they would not seriously consider trading it for any private projects, no matter how well organized and who backs them. Obviously you asked me about Gukesh. So Gukesh also signed the waiver which we proposed to the players, and I believe that, in general, their focus is much more on the real thing, let’s put it this way. Of course, as young, energetic players, they would like to pursue opportunities, and we do not limit it. I want to remind again that it was us who actually were ready to go ahead with the waiver,” he stated.
“So, I think the situation is rather clear, any chess player would like to participate in as many tournaments. I want this to be very clear we do not limit freestyle tournaments. On the contrary we were aligning our calendar and so, on but of course there is no way we could accept it to be a world championship, which is not under FIDE.”
Most important the reason why FIDE and FCPC failed to achieve an settlement for an official Freestyle World Championship…
In his open letter, Buettner had expressed confusion as to why FIDE did not formally recognise his Freestyle World Championship. He mentions that he had accepted nearly all of FIDE’s calls for, however he did not reveal that FCPC didn’t align with a key demand given by the worldwide chess physique.
Explaining why FIDE didn’t attain an settlement over a Freestyle World Championship, Sutovsky stated, “As for why it didn’t work, I mean, the only main reason, but the huge main reason, was that they basically never accepted that FIDE would be the governing body for the world championship. What they accepted is to have a qualifier together with FIDE for the event so that FIDE would be in a position to run a qualifier for their world championship which is absolutely unacceptable. Also we would be like to be in a position of silent approver of what they say and that doesn’t work like that I mean any major organizer with whom we organize the world championship always was the same and will be the same modus operandi that it’s a FIDE World Championship. The organizer has certain rights, certain duties, certain relationships between the parties but it is a FIDE World Championship.”
“The critical point was that we could never accept the point that we would be just basically, just giving or just selling as they put in the title. So no, and any attempts to present it like FIDE wanted more money is simply unfair. The one thing which we said and it was another reason but not the main reason but another reason was that the championship to be a World Championship has to have a clear qualification pattern. You cannot just have big players based on FIDE Elo ratings basically. You have to have a qualifier and it is a major thing to this stage. You know, what’s the process for FIDE World Championship, how strict and long the qualification process and basically they wanted to contribute an amount of 300,000 to that and to have some sort of a qualifier. But it’s not an amount which can run a serious qualification process but again that’s one part of the problem but the principle and more critical one is that they basically never recognized that FIDE had authority over the world championship.”
Why FIDE wants complete authority?
Additional justifying FIDE’s complete authority over any chess world championship, he stated, “FIDE runs so many events, so many competitions, programs, projects, and so on. And these things are codependent. If FIDE were not the governing body for the World Championship, we couldn’t raise money towards all the other programs which we’re doing, towards all the projects, support, ratings. These things are codependent. You cannot just take away one part and then say go and ensure high prices or budgets for some projects. In 2024 alone the budget for our major event was over 40 million USD. And to raise all this money of course FIDE needs clear authority.”
Does he anticipate extra Freestyle Chess controversies this yr?
The previous few days have seen each events reply to one another via totally different media platforms, and Buettner’s open public letter additionally included alleged partial leaked messages of Dvorkovich. Reacting to how the state of affairs was dealt with, Sutovsky remarked, “I don’t think they got good publicity because of the way they handled it, leaking the messages and so on. I do not think it gave them good publicity on Freestyle. They may think differently. As for FIDE, it’s very clear. Look, those try to portray FIDE as somebody who just sits there and doesn’t let players play or organisers organize. That’s simply not true. I mean, we were more than open and we were still, we are fully cooperating and they can do whatever they want and we can help them to navigate in order to benefit players first of all and just fans because they went through the clash, so players could participate.”
On Viswanathan Anand’s withdrawal…
For Indian followers, there has additionally been query marks as to why Viswanathan Anand pulled out from the Germany leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. In an interview with Hindustan Occasions, Buettner claimed that his resolution to withdraw was because of his function as FIDE deputy president Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen’s important feedback in New York. When requested if FIDE utilized strain on Anand, Sutovsky bluntly said, “Do you think there can be pressure on such a legend? Vishy has taken the decision himself. I think he was also in a position to decide and he decided like he wanted, but I don’t want to comment on his behalf. You should ask Vishy exactly where his main reasons or reason, and so on, but there was no pressure applied on him to not participate.”
Magnus Carlsen’s legacy…
Followers have been left notably confused by Carlsen’s hatred in direction of classical chess, particularly when contemplating the legacy of the World Chess Championships. “First of all, going back about legacy, not only Vishy or Garry Kasparov, I mean Magnus himself, his entire legacy is based on the fact that he’s a five-time world champion. That’s his main legacy. And actually now it’s being used to stress how great he is, and he is, but also at the same time to, let’s say, try and undermine what the championship is,” Sutovsky stated.
Prize cash elevated in FIDE occasions
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 is scheduled to start its first leg on February 7, and it’ll happen at Weissenhaus Resort in Wangels, Germany. We may also have loads of FIDE occasions this month, and the highlight is especially on the World Senior Staff Championships, scheduled to start on February 17. We even have the FIDE World Junior Championships scheduled to start on February 24. Over the previous yr, followers have additionally criticised the prize cash in FIDE tournaments. So this yr, FIDE have determined to extend the prize cash in all occasions by atleast 30 %. “The prizes in this year’s cycle are also going to be increased in all world FIDE events. For example, qualifiers, candidates, opens etc will be increased by at least 30 percent from the previous edition,” Sutovsky revealed.