FIDE CEO reacts to Alireza Firouzja's withdrawal from Super Chess Classic: ‘Unfair towards Praggnanandhaa’

FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky feels French Grandmaster Alireza Firouzja pulling midway out of the Super Chess Classic Romania tournament is 'unfair' to India's R Praggnanandhaa and world title challenger Javokhir Sindarov.

Firouzja pulled out of the Super Chess Classic Romania tournament after the fifth round due to an ankle injury and after playing two games from the hotel bed.

FIDE CEO speaks on Alireza’s withdrawal

With his tweet on Firouzja, Sutovsky tried to indicate that Alireza’s withdrawal in the middle of the event would mean that, in addition to the three games he had already lost to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri and Fabiano Caruana, he would hand the remaining four players in the field a point each by forfeit.

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Only India’s R Praggnanandhaa and the world championship contender Sindarov, whom he had held to draws, would be affected by losing half a point.

“Mixed feelings about Alireza. I praised him a couple of days ago. We all saw he really is finding it difficult/impossible to sit and play, but he’d better quit then than now. It is simply too unfair towards Pragg and Sindarov. And actually also other players who had to work to beat him, not having an extra free day (one may argue though, they got rating points as a compensation),” Sutovsky said on X.

Meanwhile, on withdrawing from the Romanian chess tournament, Alireza had said: “Unfortunately, due to an ankle injury sustained during the event, I have decided to withdraw from the tournament. Thank you to the organizers for their support and accommodations, and thank you to everyone following the games. I wish the players and organizers the best for the rest of the tournament.”