NEW YORK – The International Chess Federation has fined a 23-year-old chess player from the Netherlands at its World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for wearing “sports shoes”.
Fide, as the federation is known, fined Anna-Maja Kazarian €100 (S$146) for wearing what the organisation’s arbiters deemed “sports shoes” during the tournament this week.
It also required the Dutchwoman, who streams her games to more than 34,000 followers on Twitch, to change into more formal shoes between games.
Failing to change into other shoes, which she needed to retrieve from her hotel room across the river from the tournament’s venue, would “result in not being invited in the pairings for the next round”, according to the official warning, which she received on a yellow laminated card.
The shoes in question are plaid, canvas Burberry sneakers with white rubber soles.
She held them up in a YouTube video that she recorded after the incident and said that the shoes had been a gift from her sister.
“I barely ever wear them because they’re fancy,” Kazarian said in the 48-minute video, in which she recapped the day.
The first rule of Fide’s dress code for the tournament is “dress to impress”, the federation’s website states, and it is supposed to promote a “good and positive image of chess” and “shall be strictly enforced”.
Generally, sneakers are allowed, but “sports sneakers” are not.
The difference between the two is not clearly stated in the dress code and the ambiguity is tricky for players deciding what to wear, said Pavel Tregubov, Fide’s technical delegate at the tournament and a chess player.
“I understand her point of view,” he said of Kazarian.
“Fide will work on a clearer definition of sports shoes for future dress codes.”
Kazarian was not the only one who received a yellow card with a warning during the tournament this week.
Tregubov said that all of them were issued because of sports shoes. The arbiters gave out the cards only in cases in which they were 100 per cent sure that the shoes were too sporty for the tournament, he added.
Critics on the Internet were quick to condemn the strict dress code, with some people arguing that the chess organisation has the wrong priorities.
In a phone interview on Dec 28, Kazarian expressed her disappointment with how Fide had handled the situation and said that being rushed from the venue and driven to the hotel had been stressful and unpleasant.
In the YouTube video, she also said that she felt she had been treated as if she were a criminal.
“If she felt like a criminal, I’m very sorry for that,” Tregubov said. “Usually, the arbiters are shy. It’s not like in football.” NYTIMES
