The first week of February saw the chess world caught up in controversy as the Freestyle Chess Players Club failed to reach an agreement with FIDE over organising their own world championship tournament. The FCPC received official recognition from the international body just before 2024’s year-ending World Rapid and Blitz Championship.
In an official statement by FCPC, it was revealed that they had received official recognition and talks were being held over organising a Freestyle World Championship. Meanwhile, after his infamous jeans scandal in New York, Magnus Carlsen, who also co-owns FCPC, accused FIDE of threatening players from participating in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.
Hindustan Times contacted Freestyle Chess co-owner Jan Henric Buettner, and the German entrepreneur revealed that he was about to reach an agreement with FIDE. He added that he was in constant touch with president Arkady Dvorkovich. Fast forward to February 3, when FIDE released a statement saying that no agreement was reached between both parties on official recognition for a world championship.
In response, Freestyle Chess released an open public letter to FIDE demanding Dvorkovich’s resignation. FIDE released another statement asking players to sign a waiver note by February 4, 10:30 PM IST. The waiver note was about their non-participation at FCPC’s non-FIDE-recognised world championship. The clock was ticking, and then Freestyle Chess removed any mention of the world championship from their rules and regulations on the official website.
Their initial plan was to name the final Freestyle Chess leg in South Africa as the World Championship. Then even in a series of videos released on Take Take Take application, co-owned by Carlsen again, the World No. 1 spoke on the issue and revealed his dislike for classical chess. He also claimed that the younger players had admitted to it, which led their national federations to worry that they would be banned from the World Championship cycle. He also remarked that the younger players said that FIDE are threatening their future.
In an exclusive conversation with Hindustan Times, FIDE CEO and grandmaster Emil Sutovsky cleared the air on the recent controversy, and had a contrasting take on the so-called younger players. Among the younger players, we have the reigning world champion D Gukesh, who is a member of FCPC.
On D Gukesh, younger chess GMs alleged Freestyle Chess support…
“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 said.
“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.”
Main reasons why FIDE and FCPC failed to reach an agreement for an official Freestyle World Championship…
In his open letter, Buettner had expressed confusion as to why FIDE failed to officially recognise his Freestyle World Championship. He mentions that he had accepted almost all of FIDE’s demands, but he failed to reveal that FCPC didn’t align with a key demand given by the international chess body.
Explaining why FIDE didn’t reach an agreement over a Freestyle World Championship, Sutovsky said, “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 needs total authority?
Further justifying FIDE’s total authority over any chess world championship, he said, “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 expect more Freestyle Chess controversies this year?
The past few days have seen both parties respond to each other through different media platforms, and Buettner’s open public letter also included alleged partial leaked messages of Dvorkovich. Reacting to how the situation was handled, 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 fans, there has also been question marks as to why Viswanathan Anand pulled out from the Germany leg of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. In an interview with Hindustan Times, Buettner claimed that his decision to withdraw was due to his role as FIDE deputy president Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen’s critical comments in New York. When asked if FIDE applied pressure on Anand, Sutovsky bluntly stated, “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…
Fans have been left particularly confused by Carlsen’s hatred towards classical chess, especially when considering 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 said.
Prize money increased in FIDE events
The Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 is scheduled to begin its first leg on February 7, and it will take place at Weissenhaus Resort in Wangels, Germany. We will also have plenty of FIDE events this month, and the spotlight is particularly at the World Senior Team Championships, scheduled to begin on February 17. We also have the FIDE World Junior Championships scheduled to begin on February 24. Over the past year, fans have also criticised the prize money in FIDE tournaments. So this year, FIDE have decided to increase the prize money in all events by atleast 30 percent. “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.
