FIDE apologises, removes Russian flag and war supporter Karjakin ‘again’
FIDE had made an error by including Russia’s war supporter GM Sergey Karjakin in its March ratings list.
FIDE had made an error by including Russia’s war supporter GM Sergey Karjakin in its March ratings list.
FIDE had made an error by including Russia’s war supporter GM Sergey Karjakin in its March ratings list.
FIDE has apologised for including Russia's war supporter, Sergey Karjakin, on its March ratings list. The International Chess Federation said the inclusion of the controversial Grandmaster was 'an oversight' and that it has rectified the error by removing the player.
It took FIDE a day to realise its mistake, which raised eyebrows not only because Karjakin has publicly endorsed Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but also as the Russian flag was used on the chess body's official pages again.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, athletes from Russia were classified as neutral and allowed to compete only under the FIDE flag. The Russian flag has not been used in FIDE events since at least 2022. Karjakin had been banned by FIDE in March 2022 for his public statements in support of the Ukraine invasion.
The technical error that led to Karjakin and Russia reappearing on the FIDE pages was caused by an 'erroneous' approval of an illegal tournament, the Russian Chess Crown.
"Due to an oversight in the approval process, the Russian Chess Crown match was included in the March 2026 FIDE Rating List in breach of regulations. Once the error was identified, the Qualification Commission (QC) removed the event from the FIDE Rating System in accordance with the applicable rules," FIDE said in a statement.
The regulations that were violated come under Article 0.2.1 of the FIDE Rating Regulations says a tournament and its playing schedule must be registered. "As a result, Sergey Karjakin’s status has been changed to inactive, and he has been removed from the list of active players in the FIDE rating list," FIDE said.
"The FIDE Qualification apologises for any issues this may have caused with the release of the new rating list, and will work at improving the approval process in the future."
Karjakin's removal from the list has allowed India's World Champion D Gukesh to return to the top 10. Gukesh is the highest rated (2748) Indian in the men's category that is dominated by Magnus Carlsen (2840).