FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich speaks at an event during the FIDE World Chess Championship in Singapore last year.(PHOTO: FIDE/Maria Emilianova)
There was a temporary truce in the world of chess after FIDE announced that organisers of Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour had removed the phrase ‘world championship’ from their regulations. This means that the winner of the Freestyle Chess Tour will not be officially called a Freestyle World Champion, as the organisers had initially intended.
“Today, the organisers of the ‘Freestyle Chess Tour’ fully deleted from its regulations the reference to the ‘World Championship’ title. Following this change in the regulations, players wishing to participate in the 2025 ‘Freestyle Chess Tour’ are no longer required to sign the waiver note,” FIDE posted on their social media handles.
The intent of Freestyle Tour’s organisers to crown the winner of their event as a ‘world champion’ had been the sticking point between the global governing body of chess and organisers. The first event of the Freestyle Tour will be held in Weissenhaus later this week, with events also planned for New York, Paris, New Delhi and Cape Town.
“As the regulations of ‘freestyle tour’ have been changed and do not contain “world chess champion(ship)” notion anymore, no further signatures from players are required,” FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich announced on social media.
The waiver note that Dvorkovich referred to had been sent to players in an email by the FIDE Legal Director. FIDE had made it mandatory for players to sign the waiver note by Tuesday. Dvorkovich had told The Indian Express that about 10 players — about half of the players who had been emailed the waiver notes by FIDE — had signed them before the deadline on Tuesday. FIDE said the waiver notes gave the players exemption to compete in the Freestyle event despite them having existing contracts that prohibited them from playing in any rival “world championships” not regulated by FIDE.
FIDE and Freestyle Tour had been involved in a bitter battle over the past two months, which had seen plenty of name-calling on social media, accusations thrown at each other from both sides and even private text messages being leaked.
Both parties had started amicably, before talks had collapsed at the end of last year. The man behind the Freestyle Tour, Jan Henric Buettner, had declared that they were ready for war with FIDE.
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Then, Dvorkovich and Buettner had resumed conversation to try and find a middle ground before talks collapsed again. This time, FIDE Council had raised objections and had also stated that there was very little faith in organisers of Freestyle Chess.
Gukesh to play in Weissenhaus event
The ugly fight had led to five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, who is a FIDE Deputy President, to pull out of the first series, which will be held in Weissenhaus.
However, the event will see two world champions competing: five-time champion Magnus Carlsen and reigning occupier of the throne, Gukesh.
Besides Carlsen and Gukesh, the event will also see World No 2 Fabiano Caruana, World No 3 Hikaru Nakamura, World No 6 Nodirbek Abdusattarov and World No 7 Alireza Firouzja in action at a luxury resort. Uzbek prodigy Javokhir Sindarov will replace Anand.
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