By Mark Trevelyan and Alessandra Prentice
June 11 (Reuters) – The governing body of world chess has suspended Russia, which was for decades the dominant force in the game, after a ruling by the world’s top sports tribunal in favour of Ukraine.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in March upheld a complaint by Ukraine that Russia’s chess federation had usurped control of the game in areas of Ukraine captured by the Russian military. It gave Russia 90 days to hand back control of chess bodies in five regions and stop holding tournaments there.
On Wednesday the International Chess Federation (FIDE) – which is headed by Russia’s former deputy prime minister Arkady Dvorkovich – said Russia had not met the deadline and its FIDE membership was therefore suspended with immediate effect.
The Ukrainian chess federation hailed the decision as a “historic victory”, but some critics of Dvorkovich accused him of merely appearing to enforce the CAS ruling while actually creating a new loophole to benefit Russian players.
FIDE said that Russian adult players will be able, as now, to participate in FIDE tournaments under FIDE’s flag, not their own. Only juniors can play under the Russian flag.
But in a key paragraph of its statement, it also said that in team events, Russians “may be eligible” to take part under a neutral flag, subject to further FIDE decisions.
That could pave the way for Russian players to compete as a team in the next chess Olympiad in Uzbekistan in September. Russians were barred from the last two Olympiads – the chess equivalent of soccer’s World Cup – following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Malcolm Pein, an English delegate to FIDE who is preparing a possible challenge to Dvorkovich in the next election for president of the organisation, told Reuters there were a significant number of countries that vehemently disagreed with the FIDE decision.
“It’s designed to make it appear that the organisation is complying with the (CAS) judgment when they palpably are not,” he said in a telephone interview, adding that this could lead to further legal action in the court.
Russian state news agency TASS quoted Andrei Filatov, head of the Russian Chess Federation, as saying its lawyers were reviewing the FIDE suspension and may challenge it.
DEEP PASSION FOR CHESS
Russian has a deep and proud chess tradition, and amateurs can be seen hunched over boards on pavements and in parks at virtually all times of the year.
The FIDE suspension “isn’t just about chess, it’s about a global trend of excluding Russian athletes, of cancelling them,” said 38-year-old Yaroslava, who was playing a game opposite Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre in a summer chess area provided by the city authorities.
Nearby, chess teacher Alexei Lyslov shrugged off FIDE’s move. “Russians love chess. It’s a national sport… I think that this incorrect decision will not affect us very much,” he said.
Grandmasters from Russia and other Soviet republics occupied the chess summit from 1927 to 2007 in a procession of world champions that was interrupted only briefly by Dutchman Max Euwe in the 1930s and American Bobby Fischer in the 1970s.
But the era of Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov is now long gone, and the 21st century has been dominated by Norway’s Magnus Carlsen and a clutch of new stars from India and China.
Only one Russian player is currently in the world’s top 20. In April, Russia’s Andrei Esipenko finished eighth and last in the Candidates Tournament to decide who will challenge India’s Gukesh Dommaraju for the world championship title later this year.
The temporary suspension of Russia runs counter to a recent trend in which global sports are starting to re-admit Russian competitors after years of sanctions, first over a massive doping scandal and then because of the war in Ukraine. At successive Olympics, those who were allowed to compete could do so only as neutrals, without their national flag.
Swimming, fencing and judo are among the sports which have said in recent months they will drop these restrictions.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan and Alessandra Prentice in London and Yevgeniy Matveev in Moscow; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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