Magnus Carlsen’s Jeans controversy at FIDE World Rapid and Blitz: The chess feud that foreshadowed world No 1’s pull-out | Chess News

Magnus Carlsen pulled out of the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz tournament on Friday night after he was fined the global governing body of the sport for wearing jeans. While Magnus Carlsen was offered the option FIDE of changing his attire, he opted to stop playing at the year-end event, calling it a “matter of principle”.The seeds of Carlsen’s exit were sown even before the world no 1 landed in New York.
As Carlsen said in an interview with the Take Take Take app after pulling out of the event in New York, “My patience with FIDE was not very big to begin with. I’m too old at this point to care too much. They can enforce their rules. That’s fine me. My response is, I’m out, f** you. I don’t think anything more has to be said.”
Explaining why his “patience was low” with FIDE, he accused the governing body of chess of threatening players who wanted to play in the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour, which is a chess tour started Germany’s Jan Henric Buettner. Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour is a series of chess events in cities like Weissenhaus, Paris, New York, New Delhi and Cape Town in 2025. The events will be played in the freestyle chess variant.
Carlsen alleged: “There was this whole thing where FIDE actively wanted to… they were actually going after players as well to get them not to sign with Freestyle Grand Slam Tour, basically threatening them that they wouldn’t be able to play the World Championship cycle, if they played in Freestyle.”
After Carlsen’s withdrawal from the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship, Hikaru Nakamura indicated that a “war was coming”. He also backed Carlsen’s view that players had been threatened.
“FIDE said things where we were put in a situation where potentially we’d have to choose between playing in events at the Candidates cycle and playing in the Freestyle World Championship. My view of the situation is that there should be a world where players would have to choose whichever events they want to without having to worry about retributions,” Nakamura said on Saturday on his YouTube channel.
Nakamura also revealed that he had told Carlsen a week back that “if push came to shove” he would also opt to play in the Freestyle Grand Slam over the World Championship cycle events.
“We have a brave new world coming where Magnus will try and do his own thing,” Nakamura said. “There will be other players who will be in the same boat… it’s very clear now that there is basically going to be a war. I think Magnus will play the Freestyle events. FIDE will change their words and will make players pick and choose. FIDE wants to have control. The CEO Emil Sutovsky likes that and he wants to say ‘my way or the highway’. I think there is no doubt that this will be the beginning of a new era. I expect players will have to pick between FIDE and Freestyle. I don’t think Magnus will play in FIDE events. It’s going to be a good thing, it might get FIDE to introspect and try to reform.”
After the Carlsen clip was aired, FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky issued a clarification on X: “The claim that FIDE threatened players who were willing to participate in the Freestyle Chess Tour is a lie. We were happy to cooperate — as we cooperate with the Grand Chess Tour — to align the calendars. The only thing we insed on: no Series or Tour can be called World Championship unless FIDE approves it. FIDE is the governing body of chess, and any World Championship should either be conducted or approved FIDE. No player was threatened – and to that effect, one may ask Gukesh, Fabi (Fabiano Caruana), Nodirbek (Abdusattarov) and others.”
Before the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championship, Nakamura had pointed out how a vast majority of chess players don’t really make any money from playing in FIDE events. Money for players came from competing in tournaments that are not organized FIDE such as the Grand Chess Tour.

“Of course, if you win the Candidates and you play a World Championship match, there is a lot of money, but that’s really the only specific event,” Nakamura added. “So why would FIDE do negative stuff against freestyle chess? The main reason is that FIDE sees them as a threat. FIDE looks at themselves as the governing body of chess, and they should have all the power.”

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