The Ukrainian Chess Federation was outraged by the participation of Podolya in the FIDE elections

The Chess Federation of Ukraine (FSU) opposed the participation of adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine Mikhail Podoljak in the upcoming presidential elections of the International Chess Federation (FIDE). This is stated in the statement of the FSU published on Facebook (owned by Meta, the company is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia).

One of the candidates for the post of head of FIDE is Moscow-born Timur Turlov, President of the Chess Federation of Kazakhstan. This week Turlov in the social network X appealed to Podolyak with a proposal to represent Ukraine in the leadership of FIDE and take the post of Vice President in case of victory in the upcoming elections. Podolyak accepted the offer.

These events caused a wide public outcry both in the chess world and in Ukrainian society. Many presidents of national chess federations, athletes and public figures appealed to the Chess Federation of Ukraine. All of them are outraged by the actions of Turlov and Podolyak, as well as the fact that they ignored the FSU in determining the representative of Ukraine in the FIDE leadership, the Chess Federation of Ukraine said.

The FSU noted that they do not support Turlov’s candidacy in the elections, did not receive any proposals from him to nominate a representative of Ukraine to his team, did not authorize Podolyak to represent the federation in Turlov’s team, and also stated that Podolyak has no relation to either the federation or the chess life of the country.

According to the statutes of FIDE, the inclusion of a representative of a country in the leadership of the organization requires the nomination of the national chess federation of the country that this person represents. Thus, the actions of Turlov and Podolyak are reduced only to the correspondence of two private individuals in social networks. These actions are illegal and represent an attempt to raid the FSU, the statement said.

The FSU urged both “to publicly abandon this initiative and stop further violations of the law”, advised Podolyak “to take into account the national interests of Ukraine.” They also asked Volodymyr Zelenskyy, head of the office of the President of Ukraine Kirill Budanov, Prime Minister Sergei Koretsky and Minister of Sports of Ukraine Matvey Bedny to take this situation under control.

Elections of the President and other leaders of FIDE will be held at the General Assembly of the organization on September 26-27 in Samarkand (Uzbekistan). Turlov and German entrepreneurs Jan-Henrik Buettner and Vadim Rosenstein apply for the leadership post.