Facing a public relations checkmate, the International Chess Federation surrendered and allowed world champ Magnus Carlsen to wear jeans Monday at the World Blitz Championship in New York City.
“I sincerely regret that this situation escalated without a resolution being found by both sides in time to prevent Magnus’s withdrawal,” Arkady Dvorkovich, president of the chess federation, which uses the French acronym FIDE, said in a statement released Sunday.
“The concerns raised by Magnus Carlsen highlight the need for further discussion about how to modernize the current approach, to ensure that our rules and their application reflect the evolving nature of chess as a global and accessible sport.”
So while FIDE still has an official dress code, Dvorkovich said it now allows for “elegant minor deviations” such as “appropriate jeans matching the jacket.”
“Oh, I am definitely playing in jeans tomorrow,” Carlsen responded on X after the FIDE statement was released.
FIDE found itself playing defense Friday after Carlsen, a five-time world chess champion and seven-time world blitz chess champion, defied the dress code by wearing jeans at the World Rapid Chess Championship, which was also held in New York City.
Rather than change out of the jeans he’d been wearing and pay a $200 fine, the Norwegian chess grandmaster refused to play and also withdrew from the World Blitz Championship.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Carlsen declined, and as a result, he was not paired for round nine,” the organization said in a post on X, adding that the dress code is “designed to ensure professionalism and fairness for all participants.”
Carlsen told Take Take Take on Sunday that, before the event, he had a lunch meeting and “barely had time to go to the room [to] change.”
“So, I put on a shirt, jacket and honestly I didn’t even think about the jeans. I even changed my shoes, but I didn’t even think about it,” he said. “And so I got here and I don’t know if it was after the first game or second game … I got a fine and then I got a warning that I would not be paired if I didn’t go change my clothes.”
Carlsen said he was told he could change after the third round.
“I said, like, ‘I’ll change tomorrow if that’s OK. I didn’t even realize it today.’ But they said, ‘You have to change now.’ At that point, it became, you know, a bit of a matter of principle for me. So here we are.”
