Chess player Kosteniuk about changing citizenship: I couldn’t physically be part of it
Russian grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk explained the change of sports citizenship. According to her, she made a decision about this in the summer-autumn of 2022.
She admitted that at that moment she “could no longer physically be a part of this.” The chess player explained that when she played for Russia, the state used her name.
There was always “Russian chess player”. When they now say “the Russian chess player turned out to be the best,” for me it sounds like proof that “look, we are the best. And in sports too.”
Kosteniuk planned to compete under the Swiss flag from January 2024. However, the grandmaster decided to change her citizenship ahead of schedule due to the transition of the Russian Chess Federation (RFS) to the Asian Chess Federation (ASF). The athlete has been a citizen of this European country for more than ten years.
Which other chess players changed their sports citizenship?
In April, European chess champion Russian Alexei Sarana changed his sports citizenship to Serbian.
On July 9, it became known that another Russian grandmaster, Kirill Alekseenko, had changed his sports citizenship. He decided to compete under the flag of Austria. Also in July, two more Russian chess players announced a change of sports citizenship. They were Anton Demchenko and Vladimir Fedoseev. The athletes will compete for Slovenia. Then Fedoseev noted that he no longer wanted to play for Russia in any competitions.
This is a life-changing decision. This is a forced decision
In addition, Russian chess player Sanan Syugirov will represent Hungary at the competition. The transition was formalized on August 23 and takes effect immediately.
In Russia, those who changed their sports citizenship were called “downed pilots”
As the executive director of the Russian Chess Federation (RFC) Alexander Tkachev said, 65 people, including 15 grandmasters, took advantage of the right to freely transfer to another federation. “At the same time, only five of them, let’s say, had any weight. These are Alexandra Kosteniuk, Nikita Vitiugov, Kirill Alekseenko, Vladimir Fedoseev and Alexey Sarana,” he said. Tkachev called the rest of the chess players who changed their citizenship “downed pilots” and completely unknown.
In February it became known that the International Chess Federation (FIDE) will allow Russian players to change their sports citizenship under an accelerated program after the FCR transfers to the Asian organization. It was reported that Russians will be able to represent another European country in all official FIDE individual tournaments from the day after submitting their application, without any restrictions. The decision is related to the FCR’s transition to an Asian organization.
After the FCR’s transit to the Asian Chess Federation, FIDE allowed Russians to join European teams without restrictions. At the same time, a player who applied for membership in any other European federation from March 1 to August 31, 2023, was exempt from transfer and compensation payments.
Source: Lenta
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