FIDE General Assembly Votes for Сonsultations with IOC

We publish the voting results and CFR President's comments.

The FIDE General Assembly in Budapest voted on the question of lifting the restrictions from the Chess Federation of Russia and the Belarus Chess Federation as well as the full admission of Russian and Belarusian chess players to the official team competitions under the auspices of FIDE.

Delegates Sergey Janovsky (Russia), Babur Tolbaev (Kyrgyzstan), Siarhei Sychuk (Belarus), and Viktor Kapustin (Ukraine) spoke at the beginning of the meeting.  

Then the chairman of the meeting, FIDE Deputy President Viswanathan Anand, announced the decision of the FIDE Council, according to which the General Assembly was recommended to decide in favour of consultation with the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee on the possible participation in team competitions of the most vulnerable groups of chess players – children under the age of 12 and athletes with disabilities, representing Russia and Belarus.

Then the floor was given to all those who wished to speak, after which the open voting commenced.  

"According to FIDE rules, voting must be open. Not a secret one," said FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich.

The delegates were to choose one of the three points:

1. To support the recommendation of the FIDE Council to consult with the IOC and IPC on the possibility of admitting players with disabilities and children under the age of 12 to participate in all FIDE competitions

2. To maintain all the sanctions 

3. To lift all sanctions imposed on the Russian and Belarusian Chess Federations.

66 delegates voted for the first item, 41 for the second and 21 for the third one. There were 11 abstentions. 60 delegates were not present.

CFR President Andrey Filatov commented on the meeting outcome for TASS as follows:

– Those who want to solve a problem do it quickly. It (admission of children, people with disabilities, veterans – TASS note) should have been done two years ago. The FIDE Council has done nothing for two years, and now FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich wants an endless amount of time to deal with this problem. I believe that if the issue is not resolved in the shortest possible time, it testifies to a clever ploy by the FIDE President to buy time and keep our children, players with disabilities, and veterans out," Filatov said. 

"I am very surprised to see that FIDE has been taken over by the IOC. Why should the FIDE President suddenly pay attention to their point of view? - added the CFR president. 

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