A day after FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky wrote a protracted put up accusing the organisers of the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour of making an attempt to separate the world of chess, the brains and monetary muscle behind the tour, Jan Henric Buettner, has written an open letter geared toward Sutovsky and FIDE.
Buettner mentioned that FIDE had “alienated gamers” with the best way the worldwide governing physique of chess had gone about issues. He added that FIDE had demanded an “unjustifiable sum” of $500,000 to offer its blessing for the Tour.
“Regardless of Freestyle’s willingness to supply $100,000 yearly to FIDE, purely as a gesture of goodwill and to keep away from harassment — this has been rebuffed. FIDE’s demand for $5,00,000, an unjustifiable sum for a format it has no involvement in, means that financial acquire is the first driver. Our sponsors, a lot of whom choose to keep away from affiliation with FIDE altogether, assist our resolution to stay unbiased,” Buettner wrote within the open letter.
“FIDE’s latest actions, akin to threatening gamers with sanctions and demanding they signal agreements beneath undue strain and with out authorized counsel, are deeply troubling. That is neither moral nor skilled. FIDE is making an attempt to use its dominant market place to strong-arm gamers into submission. Such ways are unacceptable, and Freestyle will proceed to defend the gamers’ pursuits towards these abuses of energy.
“It appears FIDE’s strategy of excellent cop (Arkady Dvorkovich, FIDE president) and unhealthy cop (Emil) ways was sure to fail. Now, FIDE seems to have dropped the pretense completely, adopting a confrontational stance towards the gamers.”
He added: “Let me make clear as soon as once more: our tour just isn’t a ‘World Championship’ within the conventional sense, as I’ve defined to each Arkady and Vishy (Viswanathan Anand, Deputy President of FIDE). It’s titled the ‘Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour.’ On the finish of every yr, we crown a champion in Freestyle Chess – a format that may evolve in
the long run, probably transferring past Chess960 to different new codecs, however not classical chess. The title of ‘world champion’ on this context displays the distinctive format of our occasions, not an try to problem FIDE’s conventional World Championship cycle. If FIDE’s concern actually lies with the usage of ‘World Championship’ terminology , it must deal with related instances, such because the Bughouse World Championship, the place even gamers like Ding Liren have participated. But FIDE has not penalized Ding or others for collaborating. This inconsistency reveals the true motive behind FIDE’s actions: cash.”