Anish Giri: “I don’t think we have chess politics as such”

In an exclusive interview with World Chess and WGM Dina Belenkaya, the Dutch chess star Anish Giri said that having people tweeting annoying things about FIDE all the time is not chess politics.

We’ve seen many professional chess players getting involved in politics, with the most blatant example of the former World Champion Gary Kasparov. After his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparov turned to politics and created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to “work to preserve electoral democracy in Russia”.

Recently, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we’ve seen him even more active and publicly against GM Sergey Karjakin who is also very much into politics. The Russian GM and 2016 Challenger is a fierce Russian nationalist and was recently banned for 6-months from participating as a player in any FIDE-rated chess competition by the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC).

According to the latest news as well, Indian former World Champion Vishy Anand has made a dramatic entrance into chess politics by joining Arkady Dvorkovich’s campaign to be re-elected as FIDE President.

Under this context, GM Anish Giri was asked if he has ever thought involving in chess politics or politics in general, with the Dutch GM responding: “If there will be some politics left by the time I end my chess career, maybe! But right now, it’s hard for me to imagine it. [...] I don’t think we have chess politics as such. There is infrastructure, FIDE and so on, but it’s not like we have a lot of developments. We have elections and some things happen I guess. We have people who are tweeting annoying things about FIDE all the time, but I don’ call that chess politics.”

Watch Giri’s whole interview here.