CAS reckoning: the fight for the post of head of FIDE has reached the sports court

The FIDE Congress and the election of the organization's president are scheduled to take place in Samarkand on September 26-27. However, it is still unclear whether they will take place on schedule. A week ago, FIDE allowed the congress to be postponed to other dates and to another location if some of the voting delegates did not have time to obtain Uzbek visas. The organization stressed that elections can only take place if all delegates are able to participate in them. If the visa issues can be resolved, the name of the ninth FIDE president will be announced this week.

The issue of sanctions

Timur Turlov is the obvious favorite of the upcoming elections. The participants of the forecast exchange Manifold Markets give the representative of Kazakhstan an 82% chance of winning. All other candidates account for 18%. Why does Turlov have such a serious advantage over Vadim Rosenstein (First Vice President - Gordon Tan) and Jan—Henrik Buttner (Malcolm Payne)? The answer lies on the surface. Turlov is running for election in conjunction with the current leadership of FIDE — initially, the 38-year-old businessman was supposed to become the second person in Arkady Dvorkovich's team, but was forced to lead it after the 54-year-old Russian was included in the EU sanctions list. Vishy Anand, who is the acting head of the organization, will retain the post he received during Dvorkovich's second term if the candidate from Kazakhstan wins. In other words, Turlov's team knows all the delegates and their problems well and is a more understandable choice.

Of all the three candidates, Turlov is the most immersed in the chess world. He has been the head of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation for more than three years (very successfully, given the results of local players), and his company was the title sponsor of the 2023 crown match in Astana and will finance the 2026 match in Geneva between the 18th world champion Gukesh Dommaraju and Javokhir Sindarov. Finally, Turlov is the wealthiest of the three candidates. According to Forbes Kazakhstan, his fortune is estimated at $5.2 billion. At the September debate, which he conducted Chess.com Timur Ruslanovich promised to create a chess development fund with a budget of more than $6 million to support national federations.

At the same time, it is not worth counting on a quick disbandment of our national teams (and the return of the flag to the players) in the event of a victory for a native of Moscow. Last week, the FIDE presidential candidate said that the World Chess Organization should continue to comply with international sports rules restricting Russia's participation, and expressed the hope that the FSH would eventually fulfill the conditions necessary to return to full-fledged competitions (and this, we recall, is the cessation of activities in the territories of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporozhye regions and in Crimea). In the same post, Turlov turned to Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the President of Ukraine, and invited him to nominate his candidacy to the FIDE council (two days ago, Podolyak agreed to join Turlov's team). From Russia, former Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov will join the governing body of the organization (if the representative of Kazakhstan wins). He was nominated by the chess federations of Belarus, Cuba and Tajikistan.

Legal leverage

Is another scenario possible if Vadim Rosenstein, who also has ties to Russia, wins (one of his companies is registered in Moscow, and Rosenstein's family circle, according to open sources, has representatives of the Ural business). It is difficult to answer, but the German citizen seemed to take the first step in this direction, saying that he was ready to make Kirsan Ilyumzhinov honorary president of the organization (the Russian headed FIDE from 1995 to 2018)

"Dear Kirsan Nikolaevich, your long-term work as president of FIDE has created real opportunities for the growth of the modern chess school and increased the prestige of this sport in the international arena," Rosenstein wrote on his social networks. — Thanks to your efforts, important projects have been implemented, from educational initiatives to large—scale tournaments bringing together representatives from different countries. I would especially like to mention the initiatives that have been developed thanks to your support. We highly appreciate your energy, strategic vision and willingness to support the chess community in different parts of the world. Therefore, we would like to inform you that our team intends to restore historical justice and award you the high title of Honorary President of FIDE."

Ilyumzhinov is ready to support the German candidate, as well as the European Chess Union represented by its head Zurab Azmaiparashvili. However, Rosenstein has another trump card up his sleeve. He appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne against the decision of the FIDE Election Commission of September 5, 2026 on the issue of Turlov's admission to the presidential election.

In March 2022, the FIDE Council decided that persons under sanctions should not hold honorary or official positions in FIDE and should not be invited to official events of the organization (Turlov is under sanctions from Ukraine).

In his appeal, Rosenstein points out that the FIDE Election Commission, considering his initial complaint regarding the candidacy of Timur Turlov, did not consider the application of this decision of the FIDE Council in 2022. In this regard, the CAS is invited to determine how the decision of the FIDE Council of March 2, 2022 should be applied to persons under sanctions, including the issue of the possibility of holding official positions in FIDE.

"This is not an attempt to change the rules during the election campaign," Rosenstein's press service quoted him as saying. — The question is much simpler: are there FIDE rules for everyone or are they applied selectively? I'm not asking you to create new rules specifically for my opponents. I ask for a legal assessment of the existing decision of the FIDE itself. For centuries, chess has taught the world one simple principle: the rules are known in advance and are the same for both sides of the board. If the International Chess Federation wants to demand fair play from millions of chess players, it must first be prepared to apply its own rules to itself. That is why this issue should receive an independent legal assessment by the Court of Arbitration for Sport."

Therefore, whether the fight for the post of head of FIDE will end after the votes are counted is now not only a political question, but also a legal one.