World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen confirmed his return to the World Blitz Championship on Monday, after being fined and excluded from a late-round game at the Rapid C’Ship for refusing to change his jeans. Carlsen’s return comes after FIDE agreed to relax their dress code rule, and FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich revealed that ‘appropriate jeans’ would be allowed.
Commenting on the controversy, American grandmaster Hans Niemann recently took an indirect dig at Carlsen on YouTube. Niemann and Carlsen were involved in a controversy, which goes back to September 2022. During the Sinquefield Cup, Carlsen lost to Niemann in their third round fixture, and the Norwegian dropped out of the tournament after that. His withdrawal was interpreted as accusing Niemann of cheating. In their next tournament meet-up, an online event, Carlsen resigned after only one move, further fuelling rumours. Niemann also gave an interview where he revealed he cheated in online chess in the past, but denied doing so in the game with Carlsen or in any over-the-board game. It was followed by Carlsen releasing a statement, publicly accusing Niemann of cheating more often than he admitted.
Huge accusations thrown at Magnus Carlsen
Speaking on a Youtube channel, Niemann reacted to the controversy in New York by pointing out that it was beneficial for Carlsen, due to his Freestyle Chess Tour. He said, “This is just sort of a power play, right?”
“This is, you know, it’s a bit weird that people think that this is about jeans. This is a, you know… How do I word this? Let’s just say that I think that Magnus was very happy that he was kicked out of the tournament, because now he has the perfect excuse to completely challenge FIDE in a way he’s wanted to do for a very long time.
“And with his, obviously, financial, you know, when it comes to the freestyle chess tour, which I was invited to, I guess because they had to by rating, and honestly, Jan Buettner, I have nothing negative to say about him. I even met him. Great things to say. I have nothing against the tour. I’m playing in a qualifier. But, you know, the reason why he’s doing this is just to discredit FIDE, so that his tour can be labelled as the official world championship, and they just raised 12 million dollars, right?”
The FIDE recently came to an official agreement with the Freestyle Chess Players Club, and the FCPC press release stated that talks for an official championship were ongoing. The agreement was facilitated by the likes of Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura. Meanwhile, even reigning World Champion D Gukesh is also part of the FCPC. Multiple reports have stated that Carlsen and Nakamura threatened FIDE that they would not participate at the year-ending World Rapid and Blitz C’ship if an agreement wasn’t reached. Meanwhile, Carlsen has also accused FIDE of threatening players from the FCPC.
Niemann also went on to state that Carlsen ‘might be a shareholder in the company’. “It’s a big sort of investment, and how can you… I presume Magnus might be a shareholder in the company, just like he might be as a shareholder in Chess.com. Well, there was a merger, so I would, you know, I’ve gone on a bit, but this, in my opinion, was a coordinated and planned thing. It’s not some random thing that happened,” he said.
“And this is the perfect way for them to discredit FIDE, and once they discredit FIDE, then they can call whatever they want their world championship, right? Because there’s this sort of battle. In the entire world of chess, you have all these people who are vying for the stupid name of the world championship. Like, you saw Chess.com announce their global championship, which was first called the world championship, and then I guess that was a test to see how FIDE would react, and then they change it to global, probably because of legal threats.
“But no, I feel like they’ve successfully sort of done a… They’ve won some… It’s a PR battle, and now there’s a… He has the complete, let’s say, protection to secede from FIDE, because there’s a jeans headline, which is, I guess, confusing people about what’s really happening,” he added.
During their past controversy, Niemann was also removed from Chess.com. Meanwhile, an investigation was also launched by FIDE. Niemann also filed a lawsuit against Carlsen, his company Play Magnus Group, Chess.com, Chess.com’s chief officer Daniel Rensh, Hikaru Nakamura for defamation and unlawful collusion. The lawsuit was later dismissed, and Chess.com also revealed that all parties involved in the lawsuit had settled. Chess.com also ended up reinstating Niemann on their platform and Carlsen stated that he would play against him if they were paired.
