Lobbing brickbats at Fide, the International Chess Federation, is always in fashion. The organisation celebrates its centenary this year, but Russia’s top player Nepomniachtchi tweeted a bitter New Year greeting: ‘Let 2024 bring Fide everything that it lacks: transparency, integrity, clear rules, unified standards, wise judges, attentive organisers, recognisable sponsors!’
To that litany of gripes, one could add that a democratic deficit is woven into the fabric of the organisation. Member countries, no matter how few constituent players they have, each get one vote, which inevitably distorts the incentives at election time. Fide’s current president, Arkady Dvorkovich, is a former deputy prime minister of Russia, which is ‘problematic’, as the modern euphemism goes. But he is broadly respected as an administrator, and there was no serious opposition to his re-election in 2022, despite it taking place just a few months after the invasion of Ukraine.
In December, Vladimir Putin announced that he will run for a fifth term as Russian president in 2024.
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