FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich spoke with ChessBase India’s Sagar Shah about FIDE’s activities in 2024 and its plans for 2025. They also discussed the dress code incident involving Magnus Carlsen, the shared title between Carlsen and Nepomniachtchi, Freestyle Chess, and more. Below is an abridged version of the interview. The full version is available on the ChessBase India YouTube Channel.

     - The year 2024 was like filled with so many things and on interview I want to talk about all that FIDE has done in 2024 and also what the plans will be for 2025 so maybe your first thoughts about the year 2024.

     - First of all I’m really happy that we successfully ran all major competitions at a very high level, with increased price funds and expanded visibility. With sponsorship from various parts of the world, these events were held in iconic locations, including the final part of the World Championship match in Singapore and the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York. Congratulations to the new World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju. It is an amazing achievement and a big thing for India, I can guess it.

FIDE team worked hard to organize those events, to raise funding and to make sure that players are in the comfortable conditions. I would particularly like to thank the Chair of Global Strategy Commission and FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky who did a great job with his team and PR staff providing the best possible environment for all players.

I know that some people have issues with Emil and criticize him, but the way he is working like 20 hours a day sometimes and putting all his heart and efforts into events organization and fundraising is really amazing and deserves very high evaluation. I find these personal attacks on him unacceptable.  Of course, you can criticize constructively. You can argue with people, including myself. If you want to attack, attack me, but not people who work really hard. I send a strong message to everyone: no personal attacks, including on people who maybe you do not like or disagree with. They do a great job. 2024 showed and 2025 will prove it. Of course, it is not just about one person. The entire FIDE team worked hard.

I really want to thank Vishy Anand for his outstanding contribution both in Budapest in New York as well as other locations. He has had a great chess career, actually it continues; he is #10 in the world after all, but he started doing more and more and more FIDE Deputy President work. It is a really big thing.

Dana Reizniece also works very hard on various projects and handle relationships with federations. Additionally, Akaki Iashvili, Lukasz Turlej, Nigel Short all play crucial roles and I deeply appreciate their efforts. If I did not mention someone, they should not feel bad about it. There are so many people to mention. I am very grateful to our team, which is getting bigger and bigger. Since our ambitions are getting bigger and bigger, we are expanding FIDE’s road to social projects and initiatives. While 2024 was a year of some major events and FIDE’s 100-year anniversary, the 2025 is about social mission of chess, in addition to all major events.

We are finishing the year with an expanded chess community with more countries actually involved. Our next challenge is how to make our spectatorship base even broader and make chess even more commercially attractive.

     - Those were some very important points that you brought up I want to talk about a few of them that you touched upon especially the ones about the personal attacks. There were two issues at the World Rapid and Blitz in New York. The first one is this dress-code incident and the second one – sharing first place in the blitz event.

     - The time difference was very big, and I was unwell, so unfortunately I was not present when the decision was being made. I don’t criticize anyone involved — neither our team nor Magnus, who acknowledged the violation and was ready to comply with penalties. So, I don’t think anyone is really guilty in this situation. It was just a sequence of things that led to a suboptimal result that was not good for anyone. I personally would suggest a different solution if I would be there, but again it is not about criticizing anyone. It is just a lesson that we should learn. I know perfectly that Magnus did not have an intention to violate the dress code. It is the most important part for me.

I think that it is good that we found a solution and Magnus could participate in the blitz event that increased the attention to the tournament. He also went to the conference that we had before the blitz tournament, which is also good as it attracted many VIPs to the Wall Street Gambit conference.

I think everyone understands that some of his words after this jeans accident were just too much. He knows that, I know that, everyone knows that, but we found the way to move forward and it is good.  I don’t criticize anyone right now for that; we left this moment behind.

As for sharing the blitz title, I think it is a lesson in terms of regulations. The regulations were not perfect. Basically, we created the risk that it can last forever, which is not good. After two games nobody would expect that it could end up like that, but Ian was back in the game, leveled the score and it happened.

So regulations were not perfect, it is clear. My argument basically was that players did not have real motivation. It was evident even without any videos that I saw only next morning about their joking suggestions.  I really think it was kind of a joke since they knew they were being recorded, in the camera just in front of them.

Actually, I didn’t see this video when taking the decision. I just thought that there was no motivation at that point. Also, it was just a few hours before the New Year. Come on, we are on all in festive mode already! OK, it is sport and we all want them to fight to the very end, but the motivation was already down, and it was really difficult to push and play hard. So at that point I didn’t see any other solution and people who were in communication with me did not suggest any other option. So there was no discussion about that basically, and everyone was more or less okay with it.

     - Will there be changes in the dress code?

We discuss the dress code again, and normally it is in the hands of the Players Commission. We follow the recommendations that they send us and I encourage all players who are interested in the topic to contact the Players Commission and develop improved recommendations.

Players certainly should be comfortable. On the other hand, the event should look stylish. We are talking about the world championship, not about some kind of festival where style can be completely individual. Media and sponsors want to see style, but what kind of style we can discuss. Anything is possible if people look elegant that’s fine, why not? We just agreed that it should not look completely sporty like you just were running on the street in sport shoes and sport wear and then come to play at the chess world championship. It is a different kind of sport so we should find the balance and I think most of the top players understand that.

     - Could you tell what happened that Magnus came back to the blitz event? Because in my head and in the head of many, we had all thought that he would not play.

     - We talked with Magnus and Henrik after what happened and found the common ground.  They acknowledged that the dress code was broken, and it was not good in general, but also we discussed that we could also find another way to deal with that. I think the Chief Arbiter and our team did everything according to the rules so in this sense was no violation of the rules from FIDE was according to the rules but rules I would say allow also some flexibility and a decision could be different but still in accordance with the rules. We discussed it and agreed that it was good for everyone if Magnus would come back to the event. He acknowledged that some of his remarks were too much. So that is what happened. It was very open conversation I would say, and it’s good that we are that direct to each other.

     - Magnus Carlsen, the strongest player in the world right now, said he would like to put all of his attention towards freestyle chess and I think in the year 2025 they are intending to do an entire freestyle tour. Also, there have been talks about the world championship of freestyle in the making. Magnus did not defend his world title and now Gukesh became the World Champion. It does feel like there are sort of two parallel things that are going on. What is your take on this entire situation?

     - First of all, I believe that the integrity of chess family is crucial to keep chess attractive to everyone. Creating a chaos in the chess world will not be helpful and reduce chess’ appeal. Maybe in the short term somebody will win, but in the long run everyone will lose from the chaos created by unilateral actions. We do need integrity and collaboration in the chess world.

Secondly, Magnus was a bit more flexible than just saying he will concentrate just on freestyle. He said that he would focus on faster formats, Esports, and freestyle chess. I think he likes playing in this rapid and blitz events. He still participates in some classical events, private ones not the world championship cycle, and that is good as well. Magnus mentioned that he would be happy to participate in this Esports World Cup organized in Saudi Arabia.

I would actually draw your attention to the fact that they did not try to call it a world Championship; they called it World Cup, which is like a signal that they are not trying to overcome any existing international federation. There are a couple of those federations, creating some issues for Esports community in general. So they call it World Cup and Magnus is going to play there, apparently. I think this event is going to be attractive. On our side, we are still working with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to make sure that chess is a part of Olympic Esport games. I am not sure when those games will take place in 2025. There is no final announcement yet, but I know that IOC is working with Saudi Arabia to find suitable dates for the competition. I hope chess will be inside this event.

The chess world is expanding. New formats are good, and I personally welcome the initiative to also boost Fischer Random or Chess 960 or how they call it Freestyle Chess. We actually organized two Fischer Random World Championships before, but our top priorities remain classical chess and Rapid and Blitz championships.

The initiative is good, but it would be mutually beneficial to do it together, as simple as that. We are far from saying that we should intervene in every detail. We are ready to consider giving just an approval license, whatever you call it, to do it based on the understanding that FIDE is the governing body of chess, and we approve this new project. That would solve everything.

It is not about money. We understand that it is a first year; it is a pilot project, and they want to run it at their own risk.  So it is not about money for us; we can be patient, and we are ready to share the risks.  It is not an issue, but it should be based on collaboration and mutual understanding of who is responsible for what. FIDE is responsible for setting the rules for all World Championships. Our Charter is recognized by the international Olympic Committee, which is very important for the entire world and everyone should respect it. So we are very open about finding a solution, and we believe it is about the goodwill from the side of our potential partners. I took the decision to wave a possibility of sanctioning players for 2025 participating in this event since formally, according to the contracts, we can impose some sanctions. However, I do not want to go this way.  I do not want to threaten players; I do not want to put them in the difficult position. It is just a signal of our goodwill to find a solution here.

We do want players to understand that it is very important to minimize risks for the entire chess world, and they should be aware of that. It is like an interim decision for the short run, but we need to find a long-term solution here. Very soon over the next few days we will make a public statement, making sure that everyone understand the situation, and we hope that our potential partners will agree with our position and recognize our authority. In this case, we will give them an approval, or they will not call it the world championship. It is very easy to find another attractive name as well, but we are open to any normal solution.

Watch the full version on ChessBase India YouTube Channel

Photos: Lennart Ootes and Michal Walusza