Magnus Carlsen exited the World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2024 midway after being told he had violated the FIDE dress code for the event and being asked to change. (FIDE)
Magnus Carlsen’s jeans, the symbol of his dissent against FIDE, are up for auction. The World No 1 grandmaster has put up the jeans that led to him quitting the FIDE World Rapid Championship mid-way in December, before he was coaxed back into playing at the FIDE World Blitz Championship.
“The forbidden jeans – can now be yours. I am auctioning my jeans. A sentence I never thought I would write. But here we are. All proceeds go to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program,” Carlsen wrote on social media while providing a link of the e-auction site.
Listed as “Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen’s #JeansGate Jeans”, the apparel is currently going for $8,000 (approximately Rs 7 lakh) after 35 bids. The site said that the jeans had garnered over 36,000 hits. The auction will continue for 10 more days.
Big Brothers Big Sisters is an NGO that works with children
Playing at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship last year in December at New York’s Wall Street, Carlsen had fallen out with FIDE after he was warned by an arbiter that his jeans did not adhere to their strict dress code.
Carlsen was fined $200 initially and then was told by Chief Arbiter Alex Holowzsak that he needed to change his jeans before the next round game on the same day. The Norwegian said he would wear formal trousers the next day. But the chief arbiter said that Carlsen would be unpaired for the next round if he did not change, that’s when the World No 1 quit the event.
“I am pretty tired of FIDE, so I want no more of this. I don’t want anything to do with them. I am sorry to everyone at home, maybe it’s a stupid principle, but I don’t think it’s any fun,” Carlsen told Norwegian broadcasting channel NRK.
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“At that point it became a bit of a matter of principle for me,” Carlsen later explained. “Honestly, my patience with them was not very big to begin with. And it’s okay. They can enforce their rules. That’s fine by me. And my response is that fine, then I’m out. Like, f** you. I don’t think anything more has to be said.”
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