Magnus Carlsen quits World Rapid and Blitz Championships after refusing to change out of jeans

Chess player Magnus Carlsen is seen in this file photo (Misha Friedman/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen quit the World Rapid Chess Championship on Friday after he refused to change out of the jeans he was wearing, according to the International Chess Federation (FIDE).

Carlsen, who has won five world rapid and seven world blitz titles in the last 10 years, also withdrew from the World Blitz Championship which follows the tournament.

FIDE said in a statement that Carlsen breached the tournament’s dress code by wearing jeans, then declined to change his clothes after the Chief Arbiter requested him to and issued a fine of US$200.

As a result, Carlsen would not have been paired for round nine, though he could have returned for the rest of the tournament had he not decided to walk away, per Chess.com.

Since he had performed poorly in the earlier rounds, there was little chance that Carlsen could have defended his title regardless.

“This decision was made impartially and applies equally to all players,” FIDE said, adding that fellow competitor Ian Nepominatchi also breached the dress code by wearing sports shoes but continued to play once he had changed.

The standoff became “a matter of principle” for Carlsen, he told chess channel Take Take Take. “I haven’t appealed, honestly I’m too old at this point to care too much, if this is what they want to do … nobody wants to back down, if this is where we are, that’s fine by me,” he said. “I’ll probably head off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer than here and that’s it.”

He explained that he had been at a lunch meeting before heading to the tournament’s second day and “barely had time to go the room, change, put on a shirt, jacket and honestly I didn’t even think about the jeans.

“I got here and I don’t know if it was after the first game or the second game … I got a fine, which is fine, and then I got a warning that I would not be paired if I didn’t go change my clothes,” he said.

“They said I could do it after the third round today. I said I’ll change tomorrow, if that’s ok, I didn’t even realise today. But they said you have to change now.”

Relations between Carlsen, chess’ most famous player, and FIDE, the sport’s governing body, have been growing more strained recently.

Carlsen said that his “patience with (FIDE) wasn’t very big to begin with,” accusing the organization of “actively going after players to get them not to sign with Freestyle (Chess),” a tournament where the pieces on the back rank start in a random position and which Carlsen promotes.

FIDE’s CEO Emil Sutovsky responded with a statement on social media platform X, calling that claim a “lie.”

“We were happy to cooperate (as we cooperate with Grand Chess Tour, for example), to align the calendars, etc,” he said.

“The only thing we insisted 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 by FIDE.”