FIDE President Dvorkovich and the Chess Federation of Russia won their appeal against the Ethics commission. The Chess Federation of Russia was initially sanctioned by a First Instance Chamber of the Ethics commission with “suspension” for organizing events in Ukrainian territory according to the IOC and FIDE jurisdictions, but now the Appeal Chamber reduced the sanction to a “fine” of 45 000 eur.
The EDC Appeal Chamber that signed the decision to change “suspension” to “fine” was sitting in the following composition: Mr Francois Strydom (Chairperson), Mr Ravindra Dongre (Member), Mr David Hater (Member). It overturns the decision initially made by the First Instance Panel headed by Johan Sigeman.
Peter Heine Nielsen, coach of Magnus Carlsen, commented for Chessdom.com, “We are reading the verdict, and we are planning to appeal to CAS. We have just come about information that EDC President Strydom is connected to the Russian law firm ” Sila Lawyers” who represents several Russian sports federations. We are gathering information and will file a protest.” Nielsen added, “We are happy that the Chess Federation of Russia once again is found guilty on illegal chess activities on occupied territories, yet we find the change of sanctions from suspension to a fine is unfortunate.”
The decision of the Appeals committee comes as a surprise – FIDE statutes, just like IOC statutes and all sports federation statutes, use UN maps to determine jurisdiction for holding of sports events. For a similar reason the Russian Olympic Committee is suspended from IOC. With the new decision by the FIDE Ethics Appeal Committee, CFR may decide to continue breaking the statutes, paying the fine along the way.
The International Chess Federation (FIDE) is the governing body of the sport of chess, and it regulates all international chess competitions. Constituted as a non-governmental institution, it was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a Global Sporting Organization in 1999. It remains to be seen how the IOC will react to the decision of the FIDE Ethics Appeal Committee.
More to come from the FIDE Congress
Another case, coming FIDE Congress during the Chess Olympiad 2024, is the resolution by the Kyrgyzstan Chess Federation to restore the full membership rights of the Russian Chess Federation. Several sources of Chessdom.com confirmed that Russia “most probably” has the needed votes for the resolution to pass.
The resolution was proposed by Babur Tolbaev, the President of the Chess Federation of Kyrgyzstan. David Llada talks about systematically to reward submission and in this FIDE Congress we see Babur Tolbaev among the candidates for FIDE Ethics Commission chairman.
Malcolm Pein for BBC and former World Champion Garry Kasparov on Twitter/X expressed clearly their opinion on the matter. Malcolm Pein said, “Russia’s control of Fide is absolute […] We have a sort of a manifestation of what used to be known in Soviet days as a power vertical. Any vote that Russia wants passed always gets passed. They’ll be able to point to it and say, look, we’ve been allowed back into chess. They could demonstrate to their citizens they don’t have to suffer as many privations as they should be suffering because of the war.” Kasparov commented, “I treasure my own Chess Olympiad memories & would love to just enjoy this Olympiad in Budapest. But politics and the value of human life come first. The Russian Federation is banned, as from most international events, due to Russia’s genocidal war in Ukraine. It must be upheld.”
