Dear chess fans,
maybe chess players should just play chess and not touch politics?
Magnus Carlsen 2 days ago was awarded a G.O.A.T trophy (greatest player of all time) by FIDE and in a little speech he said "I am of course happy to get this award, but in my personal opinion, I still think Garry has had a better chess career than I have". Apparently he referred to ex-champion Garry Kasparow, a renonwned Putin-critic.
Then, in a for him rare political statement he went on and added "I would say, at least in Garry’s honor, I am sure that he would take the opportunity to advise against reinstating the Russian and Belarusian Chess Federations, so that is what I would do as well."
Background is that there is a new proposal by the Kyrgyz Chess Federation which aims to lift the restrictions by the chess federation FIDE against Russia and Belarus. FIDE had suspended Russia and Belarus from participation in official FIDE team tournaments, while individual players can only compete as neutral athletes. As one can imagine, the proposal has been met by protests from several Western chess federations.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-accepts-goat-award-urges-fide-to-reject-proposal-on-russia-belarus
Only hours later in round 9 of the Chess Olympiad he faced GM Vladimir Fedoseev, a Russian who plays now for the Slovenian Chess Federation. In a quite crazy game Magnus was - untypically in an endgame - completely outplayed by his opponent and lost!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fide/54009893739/in/album-72177720320468877/
What do you think, should celebrity-chess players state their political opinions or better not?
And do you think it is justified that (innocent) chess players are not allowed to represent their country?