Sanctions | A huge setback for Russia in chess – lost the vote for the first time in 30 years

in Budapest the International Chess Federation (FIDE) congress was organized over the weekend.

At the meeting, there was a presentation that raised emotions in advance, according to which Russian and Belarusian players would be allowed to return to international competition with their own country codes.

The initiative taken by the Kyrgyz Chess Federation gathered opposition during the meeting, and the Nordic countries, for example, strongly opposed it.

Having represented the Finnish Chess Federation at the congress Panu Laine according to him and the other delegates opposed to Russia’s return did strong lobbying work at the meeting place.

Respectively Russia had tried to influence the member countries so that they would vote in favor of Kyrgyzstan’s initiative. The matter was first discussed in the meeting hall, after which the vote was taken. There were three options.

1. The restrictions on Russia and Belarus will remain in place, but Fide will discuss with the International Olympic Committee to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes under the age of 12 to use country codes.

2. Current restrictions will remain in effect.

3. Current restrictions will be removed.

In the vote, the first option gathered 61 votes, 41 countries supported keeping the restrictions and 21 countries supported their dismantling. Eleven countries abstained.

“Finland voted for option 2,” Laine says from Budapest.

The option that received the most votes was a small-scale concession to Russia.

“But a very good end result,” says Laine.

In personnel selections Finland received an important mandate when Laine was elected vice-chairman of Fide’s audit committee.

The most significant personal election was held for the position of the chairman of the commission responsible for ethical and disciplinary matters. The selection process became quite a farce. First, the chairman of the meeting forbade asking questions to the commission’s presidential candidates. Despite the protests from the hall, no questions were allowed.

So we moved on to the vote. There were 176 delegates, but according to the electronic equipment rented by Fide for the votes, the candidates received 220 votes.

A representative of the English Chess Federation Malcolm Pein amused the crowd by announcing that more votes are being collected than for Putin in Russia. The Greek delegate George Mastrokoukos raved about the same thing in the X service.

Organizers according to the astonishing volume was the result of a technical fault. The voting equipment was fixed, and finally Guyana was elected as chairman Yolander Persaud. He won Romania in the decisive vote Daniel Florean by a vote of 86–75. Florea represented the pro-Russian bloc.

The Greek Mastrokoukos has followed the events of the chess world for a long time. He announced on the X service that the election for the chairman of the Ethics Commission was the first vote in 30 years that Russia lost.

Fide the congress was organized in connection with the 45th Chess Olympiad in Budapest. Last week, Fide’s 100th anniversary gala was also organized in the Hungarian capital, where the Norwegian world champion, among others, was awarded Magnus Carlsen.

In his thank-you speech, Carlsen criticized Fide’s sympathy towards Russia. Similarly, Carlsen thanked the former world champion Garry Kasparovknown as a vocal critic of Kremlin policies.