Firing a fresh salvo in their running feud with the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour organizers, international chess federation (FIDE)'s chief executive officer Emil Sutovsky has rubbished Freestyle Chess co-owner Jan Henric Buettner's claim of wanting to "protect the young players" from FIDE. (More Chess News)
Sutovsky took to social media platform X to write a detailed post, defending FIDE's actions and calling the chess circuit and all elite players part of "one chess ecosystem". He also questioned the scale of the Magnus Carlsen-backed Freestyle Chess, saying it is "not too difficult to make an exceptional event for 10 people - go make it for 300 people".
In his post, Sutovsky invoked the Grand Swiss events, World Cups, as well as World Rapid and Blitz tournaments that the likes of world champion D Gukesh, Tata Steel Masters winner R Praggnanandhaa and their compatriot Grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi competed in, stating all these played a huge role in giving these players the stature they held today.
Sutovsky's post read: "Out of all the recent claims "protecting" young top players from FIDE is one of the most ridiculous... Gukesh, Pragg, Arjun, Nodirbek, Vincent, Javokhir - they all are great talents, who managed to grow so fast largely to FIDE efforts - and specifically to our policy of not allocating all our resourses to serve just a few players."
He gave an example to illustrate his point: "Nodirbek became World Rapid Champion in 2021, when very few ever heard of him - and that gave him a huge boost in his career. But of course FIDE knew about the best young talents - because they shined in World Youth, World U16 Olympiad and other events we organize, and we always provide wild cards to the most promising young players in our top events... It is all one eco-system."
The FIDE CEO further wrote: "...let's not just recall the past. FIDE is the present - and the future. The budget of our 2024 major events exceeded 40M USD - and for the cycle of 2025-2026 we keep increasing the prize funds and improving the playing conditions.
"And we deliver time after time. Year after year. Whatever the format. New York, Singapore, Budapest, Astana, Toronto, Samarkand - East or West."
Carlsen and Buettner have been at loggerheads with FIDE over the ongoing Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour. FIDE had taken issue with the event's organizers calling it a 'world championship', stating that FIDE has the sole authority "over world championship titles in all relevant variations of chess - including Chess960/Freestyle chess, as outlined in the FIDE Handbook".
Carlsen and Buettner levelled allegations of blackmail and coercion on FIDE, with Carlsen publicly seeking FIDE president Arkady Dvorkovich's resignation. After a lot of back and forth, the Freestyle Chess organizers had removed the term 'World Championship' from their promotional materials, though only for the next 10 months.
