De-FIDE-zation: Russian influence in chess faces challenges beyond sanctions

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Today, only a handful of international sports federations still feature Russian leaders. Putin-connected oligarch Alisher Usmanov, for instance, continues to head the International Fencing Federation, even though he now spends most of his time in Uzbekistan. Since 2018, FIDE has been led by Arkady Dvorkovich, a former senior Russian official who served as an aide to President Dmitry Medvedev and later as his deputy in the Russian government. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee has suspended the authority of another organization with a Russian president — the International Boxing Association (IBA). Its head, Umar Kremlev, who has ties to Russia’s Federal Protective Service, has openly supported the war in Ukraine.

Unlike Umarov, Dvorkovich avoided clashing with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and supported sanctions against Russian and Belarusian athletes. Moreover, in March 2022, he gave an interview to the U.S. magazine Mother Jones, where he condemned the invasion of Ukraine. This prompted Andrey Turchak, then the secretary of the General Council of United Russia, to label him a “national traitor.”

The resulting pressure cost Dvorkovich his position in Russia, forcing him to resign as head of the Skolkovo Foundation. However, he retained his role at FIDE and decisively won reelection in August 2022. In the early months of the full-scale war, Dvorkovich even left Russia. Yet according to several FIDE sources interviewed by The Insider, he now spends most of his time in Moscow, maintaining connections with figures from Putin’s establishment.

“Arkady’s norm is not just sitting comfortably on two chairs, but on three or even four, and he has mastered the art of maneuvering to a level of unparalleled virtuosity,” remarked a FIDE source to The Insider using a Russian idiom that roughly translates to “sitting on the fence.”

Russian money

Up to half of FIDE’s tournament budget (approximately €15 million) comes from sponsors tied to Moscow’s sphere of influence. Although these sponsors are not formally Russian citizens and are not subject to international sanctions, their connections are notable. One of the most prominent figures in this regard is Timur Turlov, president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and the primary owner of Freedom Holding, an international financial group headquartered in Almaty.

Freedom Holding is well-known in Russia as a brokerage firm and, more recently, as one of the most popular banks among Russians seeking VISA or Mastercard cards that function outside the country. According to a source interviewed by The Insider, around half of FIDE’s annual revenue comes from donors like Turlov. These funds are provided both as direct sponsorship contributions and as “revenues from tournaments.”

After Arkady Dvorkovich replaced Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as FIDE president in 2018, the organization’s budget increased dramatically. For instance, in 2016, it stood at around €3 million, while by 2023 it had grown to approximately €18 million. A significant portion of this money came from sources unconnected to Russia, and the fundraising effort is largely attributed to grandmaster Emil Sutovsky, an Israeli citizen and a key member of Dvorkovich’s team.

According to The Insider's sources, Sutovsky played a pivotal role in persuading Isai Scheinberg — a legendary figure in the gambling industry and the founder of PokerStars, which he sold for $4.9 billion in 2014 — to invest heavily in chess. In recent years, Scheinberg has funded prize pools for several major FIDE tournaments. He also acquired a controlling stake in Chess.com, although he recently sold it, likely at a substantial profit given the platform’s explosive growth in popularity.

One of FIDE’s undeniable achievements has been securing Google as a sponsor for the World Championship match between reigning champion Ding Liren (China) and challenger Dommaraju Gukesh (India). The prize fund for the match is set at $2.5 million. While this is significantly lower than the legendary record set in 1972, when Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer competed for $5 million (equivalent to an extraordinary $36 million today, adjusted for inflation), earnings in elite chess have been steadily increasing in recent years.

However, Sutovsky has his critics, and there are many grandmasters among them. Some believe he overstates his contributions, with a few even likening his involvement on Dvorkovich’s team to “the One Ring’s influence on Gollum.” Sutovsky declined The Insider's request for comment.

Defending allies

The chess world was stirred in September 2024 when an attempt was made during the FIDE Congress to completely lift sanctions on the chess federations of Russia and Belarus. This initiative came from the Kyrgyzstan Chess Federation, and initially, it seemed that FIDE leadership might be inclined to support it.

Since the days of former FIDE presidents Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and Florencio Campomanes, it has been common practice for key votes on contentious issues to be decided by a majority consisting largely of delegates from developing countries, a group considered relatively easy to influence. Communication with these delegates is typically managed by FIDE officials. Predictably, the European Chess Union strongly opposed lifting the sanctions, and Ukraine’s delegate, Viktor Kapustin, declared:

“We believe that the memory of 34 Ukrainian chess players, coaches, and organizers killed by Russians is reason enough to uphold the sanctions.”

The debate — and the subsequent vote did — not favor Russia. Arkady Dvorkovich handed the chairing of the session to Vice President and former World Champion Viswanathan Anand, refraining from participating in the discussions. When it suddenly became clear that FIDE regulations do not allow for secret ballots on such issues — something Dvorkovich himself announced, much to the visible frustration of Andrey Filatov, president of the Russian Chess Federation — around 60 delegates, including representatives from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, opted not to vote at all. Filatov attributed this development to “unprecedented pressure from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department.” However, a FIDE source told The Insider that there was no noticeable pressure from either side. Instead, the delegates simply appeared to be confused by the situation and ultimately made their decisions spontaneously.

In the end, a relatively compromise-based proposal was adopted. Reportedly conceived within FIDE’s bureaucracy, it was introduced by Anand and supported by 66 votes, including those of India and China. The resolution recommended that FIDE uphold the restrictions on adult participants from Russia and Belarus while consulting with the IOC and the IPC on the possible inclusion of children under 12 and players with disabilities in all FIDE events.

The final vote tally saw 41 delegates voting to uphold the sanctions fully, 21 voting to lift them, and 66 supporting the compromise.

On the eve of the FIDE sanctions vote, Magnus Carlsen, the top-ranked chess player in the world, expressed his support for maintaining the restrictions. At a ceremony where he was honored with the Chess Player of the Century award, the Norwegian grandmaster stated:

“There’s no doubt that this is a well-deserved award for me, but in my view, Garry Kasparov had a better career than I did. I understand why I was chosen for this recognition, but I still think he deserved it more... I am certain Garry would have supported keeping the sanctions against the Russian and Belarusian chess federations.”

How Russian chess players compete during the war

In practice, many chess players from Russia and Belarus, unlike athletes in most other sports, continue to participate in international tournaments. Over 100 players changed their sporting nationality in 2023. The list includes former Women’s World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk and top-100 players Vladimir Fedoseev, Kirill Alekseenko, and Nikita Vitiugov.

In late February 2022, during the Grand Prix tournament in Belgrade, Fedoseev requested that the Russian flag be removed from his table. He later decided to relocate to Slovenia, telling reporters, “This is a life-changing decision. It’s a forced decision. I no longer want to play for Russia in any competitions.” Alekseenko and Vitiugov now top the chess rankings for Austria and England, respectively.

A significant number of players have taken advantage of the option to compete under FIDE’s neutral flag. According to most sources interviewed by The Insider, there is a prevailing critical stance among Russian grandmasters and masters toward Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. In March 2022, 44 prominent chess players — including Alexandra Kosteniuk, Russian rating leaders Ian Nepomniachtchi and Daniil Dubov, and Olympic champions Peter Svidler and Alexander Khalifman — signed an open letter to Vladimir Putin opposing the war and expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people.

Among notable players, only grandmaster Sergey Karjakin and former World Champion Anatoly Karpov openly supported the pro-Kremlin position. In September 2024, Karjakin began a political career as a senator representing annexed Crimea. Karpov, now 73, had once attempted to challenge the Russian establishment; in 2010, with Garry Kasparov’s backing, he ran against Kirsan Ilyumzhinov for the FIDE presidency. However, he later became a State Duma deputy for United Russia and has since avoided taking political risks.

In the summer of 2024, an initiative by grandmaster Igor Glek sought to establish a team called Global Russians, which was aimed at uniting chess players who opposed the war. Within three months, approximately 100 players joined the group. The team became one of the top performers on the popular non-commercial chess platform Lichess.org, which allows users to choose between the Russian tricolor and the white-blue-white flag — which is widely used by anti-Putin Russians abroad as a symbol of self-identification — when setting up their profiles.

According to former State Duma deputy Arkady Yankovsky, who served as vice president of the Russian Chess Federation in the late 1990s, this type of representation for Russian participants has the potential to reach a broader audience. Notably, the first athlete to refuse to compete under the Soviet flag was Garry Kasparov. During his 1990 World Championship match against Anatoly Karpov, Kasparov declared that “the USSR is dead” and demanded that the “flag of New Russia” — the tri-color that is today being shunned as a symbol of support for Putin — be placed on his table in place of the red banner.

The Threat to FIDE

FIDE’s future is becoming increasingly uncertain amid the rapid growth of online chess. For many professionals, online lessons have already become their primary source of income, with students in the U.S., for example, often paying grandmaster coaches $100 per hour. On Chess.com, around 10 million games are played daily, making it a significantly more profitable business model than FIDE, despite the federation's relative successes.

The explosive growth of Chess.com began about three years ago, driven by two key factors: the COVID-19 lockdowns, which confined hundreds of millions of people to their homes with computers, and the global success of The Queen’s Gambit series, which significantly increased interest in chess among beginners.

Between 2020 and the end of 2022, the number of users on the platform doubled, rising from 50 million to 100 million. Today, Chess.com can afford to host grandmaster tournaments with annual prize pools of $2-3 million — comparable to FIDE’s tournaments — and can pay substantial fees to popular streamers, the most prominent being American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.

In early 2024, Chess.com acquired its closest competitor, Magnus Carlsen’s Chess24 platform, and is reportedly preparing for an IPO. If this happens, investments in online chess could leave FIDE behind — or it could integrate the analog organization into the digital ecosystem of platforms, where identities and communities are formed outside the confines of national federations.