The Candidates line up

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. In the same month, Fide voted to scrap the limit on presidential term limits, leaving Dvorkovich free to run for a third term in 2026 – a particularly brazen move considering that the two-term limit was one of Dvorkovich’s own campaign promises back in 2018.

But on other matters, Fide is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. In the past, one place in the Candidates tournament – which selects a challenger for the world championship – was awarded by wildcard. One point in favour was that prospective sponsors might be enticed by the perk of selecting their local champion to participate, but it drew justified criticism when the wildcard entry excluded other more eligible candidates. So the rule was scrapped, and for next year’s event in Toronto, seven out of eight spots were awarded based on high finishes in elite events, while the last spot was to be allocated to the next player with the highest published international rating in January 2024.