FIDE votes for president on September 26 in Samarkand: The pledge to bring Carlsen back and the fault line of conflict of interest

In Samarkand these days, people speak of Magnus Carlsen more than of anyone actually present. The player regarded as the greatest in chess history has been absent from the classical world championship cycle since the summer of 2026, when he announced he would not defend the crown — a title he had won five times. The greatest board of the sport of the mind goes on, moves are still recorded, the crown still finds a head, but the void Carlsen left behind is so large that every debate about the future of the game must start from it.

On September 26, at the FIDE General Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, member federations will vote for the president of the International Chess Federation. This is a contest over the power to shape the championship cycle, the rules of play and the way chess is delivered to a global audience — a battle whose outcome will echo longer than any game.

Wadim Rosenstein, a German entrepreneur and organizer of elite chess tournaments, founder and chairman of WR Chess, told Reuters on September 18 that among the candidates he has "the best relations with Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura." He pledged to work to bring both back into the classical championship cycle. That was the most quoted line in the report, and also the least verifiable.

Context: one presidency, many fault lines

FIDE is the worldwide governing body of chess, holding the power to issue the rules of play, run the world championship cycle and license international tournaments. The incumbent president, Arkady Dvorkovich, stepped aside after being placed on a European Union sanctions list. That exit was not voluntary; it came from external geopolitical pressure, and that is precisely what places the leadership transition in an unusually tense state.

All three candidates for the presidency are entrepreneurs from outside the traditional chess-administration apparatus: Rosenstein, Jan Henric Buettner — also a German businessman — and Timur Turlov, a Kazakh businessman. This signals that commercial capital is flowing strongly into the sport's highest level of governance. Choosing leadership is no longer an internal matter for professional chess administrators; it has become a race among people who own assets and financial capacity.

The race unfolds against a backdrop of chess being pulled in several directions on format. The classical format, with long time controls, deep preparation and high draw rates, was once the most prestigious pinnacle. But new formats — freestyle in the Chess960 style with randomized starting positions, rapid, blitz and online events — are drawing audiences far faster. Online events have quick rhythms, high variance and powerful media appeal.

It is Carlsen himself who has shifted in this direction. Since leaving the classical championship cycle in 2026, he has poured his energy into other formats. For a player who has invested years in opening databases, freestyle is an attractive choice because it reduces the value of memorized opening preparation, shifting the emphasis toward raw calculation and adaptability. This is not the rebellion of an individual; it is the migration of an entire ecosystem.

Core analysis: a pledge with no mechanism

What stands out most about Rosenstein's commitment is that it comes with no enforcement mechanism. FIDE cannot force a player to enter the championship cycle. It can only adjust qualification pathways, grant wild cards and design commercial incentives. In other words, the pledge to "bring Carlsen back" sounds loud, but it depends entirely on the goodwill of a person beyond FIDE's control. Such a pledge is an attractive political anchor, but a fragile foundation for a campaign.

Based on my experience following games and championship cycles, there is a central paradox that the chess world has yet to resolve: the world's number one and number two players sit outside or at the edge of the classical championship cycle, while the title continues to be awarded without them. Competitive strength and the value of the title have clearly come apart.

According to published rating data, pending further verification, Carlsen holds roughly 2830, having peaked near 2882 in 2026. Hikaru Nakamura, the world number two, holds about 2790 to 2800, having peaked near 2816 in 2026. Both have passed the traditional peak-age zone, and both are repositioning themselves toward format diversification and media value.

The asymmetry of power lies here: FIDE needs Carlsen more than Carlsen needs FIDE. The commercial value of the classical championship title declines when its most recognizable figure is absent. A durable return would therefore most plausibly require format concessions or a special qualification path, not merely an invitation. The fact that the report states no concrete mechanism suggests the pledge was deliberately left open.

The Russia file and the CAS ruling

Beside the Carlsen story is a far more complex legal file: the relationship with the Russian Chess Federation and the role of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. FIDE temporarily suspended the Russian Chess Federation in June after it failed to comply within the prescribed deadline with a CAS ruling concerning the federation's incorporation of organizations from occupied Ukrainian territories. Rosenstein pledged to "follow the CAS decision — there is no way around it."

This is the clearest and least controversial legal plank of his platform. It is framed in the language of law, with almost no room for discretion. It stands in complete contrast to the rest of the platform, where his personal conflict-of-interest exposure creates awkward grey zones.

Conflict of interest: a double-edged sword

Rosenstein has faced campaign questions over his business links to Russia. WR Group previously had logistics, certification and oil-and-gas projects in Russia, said to have been dropped after the 2026 sanctions. He is himself the founder and chairman of WR Chess, an organizer of elite chess tournaments.

He proposes a rule: FIDE employees should not be permitted to work simultaneously for private chess organizations. On its face, that is a strong and principled anti-conflict measure. But it raises an awkward self-application question: as founder and chairman of WR Chess, would such a rule constrain the president's own ecosystem? The report does not answer this, and that silence is itself worth noting.

There is another, less glamorous reading: the rule may be functioning as pre-emptive damage control for the candidate's own exposure, rather than a purely principled reform. This is a conjecture, not a conclusion. But in sports governance, the difference between a rule designed to protect the institution and a rule designed to protect the person proposing it is enormously important.

A counterintuitive angle: competitive value versus commercial value

Here, I think it is necessary to separate two things the public often conflates: competitive value and commercial value. Nakamura in this report appears mainly as a commercial asset — an American player, world number two, with streaming appeal — rather than as a classical title contender. The line between "who is strongest" and "who draws the most views" is blurring, and that is more worrying than any unverifiable pledge.

I myself once spent days simply rewatching footage of old games. Sixty days listening to recordings, I imagined the roar of empty seats. The feeling of the absence of someone great, it turns out, can stretch across years rather than just one tournament. And in chess, that absence leaves a void no press release can fill.

FIDE's competitors are not only other federations. They are online platforms with enormous financial power and private tournament organizers, including the very organizations some candidates lead. FIDE's control over the competitive calendar is eroding relative to the capital of the platforms. The September 26 vote, therefore, does not merely choose a person; it chooses a direction for the coming decade.

But there is a bittersweet paradox inside the reform plan itself. The rule that "FIDE employees may not work for private chess organizations," if strictly enforced, could reduce the overlap between FIDE staff and commercial organizers — improving governance optics, but it could also slow informal industry-wide coordination. This is one of the trade-offs the report does not put on the table, but the next board will have to face.

And I return to my own story. The years of following chess taught me that a chessboard holds not only pieces, but the calluses of human life. A court ruling, a conflict-of-interest rule, a line of sanctions — all of them leave marks on the specific people sitting behind the pieces. Fans in Vietnam follow this news from very far geographically, but very close spiritually, because chess is a sport where every decision at the governance level flows down to the board in youth tournaments, where our young players are still struggling to find a footing.

A push on verifiability

The biggest problem with Rosenstein's platform lies in the imbalance between its two halves. The most verifiable part — governance reform, compliance with the CAS ruling, commercialization — receives the least attention. The least verifiable part — bringing Carlsen back — takes the whole headline. This is the kind of imbalance the media calls narrative heat running far ahead of the factual base.

The candidate himself admits a structural problem: chess has very few sponsors relative to its global recognition. The gap between popularity and sponsor count is the clearest structural weakness in the sport's business model — and it exists before, and will exist after, any single presidency. This is fertile ground for a serious commercialization plan, but it is also the easiest place to make empty promises, because results only arrive after years.

If Rosenstein wins, the combination of a Russia-linked business history and his role as founder of WR Chess could produce a "governing while competing" situation — eroding the credibility of both the FIDE presidency and the very conflict-of-interest reforms he proposes. Conversely, if he loses, the Russia file will remain a flashpoint, because compliance with the CAS ruling is externally imposed, not self-chosen. Whatever the outcome, one paradox remains intact: chess is trying to prove it is a global sport, while its governance structure is still shaped by geopolitical endgames.

A progressive thought

The game ends, but the applause still echoes in my memory. The September 26 vote will produce a result, and the winner will step into the office with a long list of unresolved problems: which format holds the central role, how to bring the big stars back, and how to govern transparently in an environment increasingly dominated by commercial capital.

For someone who has followed the chess world for more than twenty years, what is worth waiting for is not who wins. It is whether, after the vote, people still speak of chess as a sport of moves, or only as a market of views. The answer is not in Samarkand. It is on every board, where some child is still learning how to sacrifice a pawn to keep the balance.