Bengaluru: Freestyle Chess has been a simmering issue between the world chess governing body, Fide, and the game’s most successful player, Magnus Carlsen, for a while now. After he walked away from the classical Fide World Championship cycle in 2022, Carlsen has been a promoter of Freestyle Chess (chess960), backed by German entrepreneur Jan Buettner.
The stand-off between Fide and Carlsen on the matter was out in the open during the world rapid and blitz championships in New York. A primary bone of contention has been Freestyle Chess’ aspirations to run a World Championship, an idea that Fide has been vehemently opposed to.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Fide slammed the Freestyle Chess Players Club (FCPC) and said that their steps “unavoidably lead to divisions in the chess world”, and touched upon the split in the chess world a couple of decades ago as a reminder. . In 1993, former world champion Garry Kasparov split from Fide and formed a rival organization, Professional Chess Association. It was, however, short-lived and Kasparov later spoke of regretting the move.
Fide further said that in a gesture of “goodwill” it has taken the decision to accommodate the 2025 Freestyle Chess series in the calendar and “to refrain from invoking relevant legal clauses in previously signed contracts concerning players’ participation in 2025 Freestyle events”.
Freestyle chess tour is scheduled to have its first event of the year in Weisenhaus, Germany in February. Among the players confirmed to participate are six of the world’s top ten players – Carlsen, Gukesh D, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Nodirbek Abdusattorov and Alireza Firouzja. World No 10 and Fide deputy president Viswanathan Anand, who was part of the lineup originally, has pulled out of the event.
In its latest statement Fide has made it clear that it stands firm on not conceding rights to any private organization to run a parallel World Championship. With the Fide Classical World Championship cycle currently ongoing, the body said that it expects all qualified players to sign a contract that they will not participate in any World Championship, not approved by Fide. A breach of contract would lead to players being ruled out of two consecutive Fide World Championship cycles.
“As the 2025-2026 World Championship cycle is underway, all qualified players are expected to sign an additional contract, which will include a clause indicating that participation in any alternative world chess championships in any variation of chess not approved by Fide (except for the Freestyle tour in 2025) would lead to their withdrawal from the two consecutive Fide World Championship cycles,” Fide said in its statement.
Fide called attempts by the FCPC to present their project as a World Championship “in contradiction with the well-established status of Fide and its authority over world championship titles in all relevant variations of chess – including Chess960/Freestyle chess” and stated that the line of conduct adopted by FCPC “threatens the execution of players’ existing contractual obligations towards Fide”.
Offering that they are “open to dialogue, and to reaching a mutually acceptable agreement” Fide stated that should such an agreement not be reached, it “demands that the Freestyle series does not carry the status of a World Championship” and that the body “ will not hesitate to use all legal means” against those who violate its rights.
