Anger Over All-Russian Team FIDE As New 'Fast Classical' Time Control Makes Its Debut
FIDE, the governing body of chess, proclaimed a "fiery start" to the Women's World Team Chess Championships in the Spanish city of Linares on Tuesday—and it wasn't wrong.
Over the board, India's IM Savitha Shri B and Chinese WGM Zhai Mo showed tactical brilliance as FIDE's new "Fast Classical" time control made its debut. Both scored convincing wins for their teams.
Fast Classical is games with 45+30 on the clock, designed to offer promote games that are both easily consumable for fans, and high quality. FIDE hopes to roll it out in more tournaments if this is a success.
But fire at the start of this particular tournament, taking place in one of the most iconic locations in chess history, has been raging over something else also: the existence of one highly-controversial team, Team FIDE.
After day one, Team FIDE—which boasts among others GMs Alexandra Goryachkina and Kateryna Lagno—has taken a commanding lead in Pool A, scoring convincing victories over the U.S. and Kazakhstan.
But here is a team that consists entirely of Russian players competing under the neutral FIDE flag. Supposedly this isn't a Russian team, but it is—and that is a problem.
Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, FIDE has followed International Olympic Committee (IOC) guidelines and excluded Russian and Belarusian teams from international competition.
As recently as May 2025, the IOC reaffirmed its decision to exclude the Russian and Belarusian sports federations and their teams. There is no movement there.
But FIDE has been slowly loosening its rules, both in junior and disability events, and now women's tournaments. For the first time in a major event outside those categories, FIDE has now allowed an all-Russian line-up in the Women's World Teams.
Ukraine's chess community has been in uproar. The question for Ukraine is, how can they stop this? Players have threatened to boycott the event, the Ukrainian Chess Federation has claimed FIDE has broken its own rules and appeals have been made to the IOC.
A last-minute complaint to Spain's sporting authorities earlier this week against Team FIDE's participation appears to have yielded nothing. FIDE has insisted Team FIDE should play and claimed it has received "no objection" from the IOC.
Ukraine and its supporters, who include the vocal opposition campaigners IM George Mastrokoukos and GM Peter Heine Nielsen, believe otherwise.
The argument is that this is the thin end of the wedge: allowing Team FIDE to play paves the way for all Russian teams to be readmitted. FIDE has already confirmed an item to that effect is already on its agenda for the next General Assembly in December.
What happens now is unclear. This event is continuing despite the protests. Is this a win already for Team FIDE?
Ukraine, the current Olympic champions, did not travel to Linares with their top line-up. Its young team fell in Round 1 to India.
Can "Russia" and Ukraine meet over the board here? Will the players shake hands? How would a Team FIDE win be presented in Russia?
There is a potential international incident brewing here and, yet again, chess is the guinea pig used to test the response.
This argument will rumble on and is far more than just a fascinating and important side-show to the main event. The Women's Team Chess Championships is yet another chess tournament being used as a proxy for a much wider fight.
Meanwhile, Team FIDE looks formidable.
Round 3 begins on November 19 at 1.30pm local time. The action can be followed live on the FIDE YouTube Channel, featuring expert commentary by GMs Antoaneta Stefanova and Ivan Cheparinov.