Magnus Carlsen on Viswanathan Anand: ‘For all his good qualities, he is not ready for FIDE job’ | Chess News
Magnus Carlsen on Sunday has confirmed that he will be playing in the World Blitz Championship a couple of days after he pulled out because he was fined FIDE for violating the dress code rules wearing jeans on day 2 of the event.
“Well, first of all, let’s go back to a couple of days ago. I did have some choice words for FIDE in my interview with you. And I would say that it was a bit imprecise. I definitely mean it when it comes to certain people in FIDE. No question about it,” Carlsen told “Take, Take, Take.”
“I think the situation was badly mishandled on their side. And I was about to basically book my plane tickets and get out of here. My father said that we should maybe wait until the morning to make a decision to speak to the FIDE president, Arkady Dvorkovich, whom we have a good relationship with.
“We know that we can reason with him. I think him actually being asleep when this thing went down meant that there were no grown-ups in FIDE. You can argue whether I am or not, but that’s… We felt that there was nobody even slightly willing… They weren’t even willing to have a conversation or anything.”
Viswanathan Anand, has said that Magnus Carlsen left FIDE with little choice than to un-pair the Norwegian. “He simply refused to follow rules, left us with little choice,” said Anand to Chessbase India. “Today this decision seemed emotional. Magnus was not willing to compromise.”
However, Carlsen said the conversation he has had with Anand was not fruitful at all.
“We had long conversations with Anand yesterday and others, which generally didn’t lead anywhere,” he said.
“It was generally the same answers, that arbiters are basically robots who cannot think on their own, who have no way to even deviate slightly from… I don’t even know if I broke any rules. I still haven’t gotten a clear answer on that.
“They were saying that jeans were generally not allowed. If it’s generally not allowed, that must mean that there must be exceptions. And if I, with a decent attempt at an outfit apart from that, didn’t meet that exception, I don’t see what would, frankly.
“So I’m not even sure I broke any rules. But anyways, they decided to take that opportunity to pursue a very narrow interpretation of a rule. Apparently there was no room for discussions or anything.
“Anand said very clearly that he didn’t know that he had any opportunity to do anything past, you know, go with the arbiters’ honestly draconian decision of not pairing me. And that means that he was, for all his good qualities, he was not ready for this job. That’s what I feel.
“But I felt that speaking to Dvorkovich yesterday and to Turlov as well, the main sponsor, we did feel that we could have some fruitful discussions.”
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