“Dear Chess Doctor – What do you think about FIDE’s decision to ban Sergey Karjakin for six months for expressing his political beliefs? It seems like a pretty important decision.”
Thanks for a very interesting question, and one that’s sure to be a controversial topic.
A bit of background on the Karjakin case: Sergey Karjakin, one of the strongest and most influential chess players in the world, recently made several provocative and arguably inappropriate comments regarding the Russia-Ukraine war. The comments in question from Karjakin (who, incidentally, was born in Ukraine but has been a Russian citizen since 2009) appeared on two social media platforms, Twitter and Telegram. In the end, the FIDE Ethics Commission decided that his actions were worthy of a six-month ban from participating in any FIDE rated competitions worldwide. This extends to the Candidates tournament, and thus rescinded the spot in that event that he very much deserved after his success in the World Cup.
For starters, what were the statements in question, and why were they deemed so heinous? After some digging, I couldn’t find anything that did more than strongly express his pro-Russian position, while repeating the widely-refuted Russian government stance that Ukrainians are killing their own people. A popular opinion? Absolutely not. Misguided? Certainly plausible. But worth losing a shot at the World Champion title for? On this point there will surely be differences of opinion.
It would seem that the spark that lit the fire was Karjakin relaying on Twitter a very badly-timed conversation he supposedly had with a taxi driver in Dubai, as well as some politically charged photographs of Ukrainian soldiers. Screenshots of these tweets are readily available, though he later took them down. I won’t give voice to them here.
The question at hand is an important one: was it correct for FIDE to hand Karjakin that six-month ban? After all, he was only expressing his opinion. Interestingly, Karjakin didn’t seem to mind it one bit, even though following this decision his career as a professional player may well be considered finished, at least for the near future. What organizer outside of Russia would dare to invite him now?
In my opinion, Karjakin’s actions weren’t worthy of such harsh action. In the end I’m not so certain that his “… public statements caus(ed) … harm to FIDE, its federations and the game of chess,” as was stated in FIDE’s decision on the matter. It is perfectly normal for organizers of specific tournaments to decide not to invite certain players for one reason or another. But it feels to me that FIDE crossed a line with such an extended ban simply due to Karjakin expressing an opinion … albeit a highly unpopular one.
However, it is also a very fair point that one of FIDE’s paramount principles is “… to improve harmony and promote peace among all peoples of the world” (once again quoted from the decision above), and it can definitely be interpreted that Karjakin’s deliberate and unwavering Pro-Russian comments have been in violation of that rule. As a private organization, they were certainly well within their rights to impose sanctions.
I hope this helps answer the original question! As always, you’re welcome to submit a question of your own by clicking the button below or going to https://grandmaster2b.com/chess-doctor/
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