Chess: a pawn in the game of Russian power

On July 11, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, went to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Israeli press disagreed as to whether the impromptu trip was devoted to a high-level discussion on the security situation in Syria and Iran, as it had been formally presented, or simply an excuse to attend the semi-finals of the Football World Cup.

Anyway, when the two leaders sat down together in the Kremlin that afternoon, before Netanyahu and his entourage headed for the VIP stand at the Luzhniki stadium, another topic of discussion was discussed. In the midst of Assad's and Hezbollah's speeches, Putin asked Netanyahu for support for Israel in an upcoming election: the presidency of the World Chess Federation (Fide).

"Imagine," says Malcolm Pein, international chess master and British commentator, "if he was right at the crucial moment of the talks on reaching an agreement with the EU, Theresa May turned to [France’s president] Macron and said, "All right, enough of that Brexit thing. I want to talk to you about your support for our British chess candidate. Because that's basically what it was. "

For two decades, Fide has been one of the prime targets for observing the changing geopolitical movements of the post-Cold War era: the former president, oligarch Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, was forced to leave the year last after being sanctioned by the US government. The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the latest in a series of diplomatic relations for which Fide was the smokescreen.

It is an organization whose activities, with a slight absurdity, encompbad a world of serious sports hall tournaments and competitions of political influence at the state level; a world populated by small oligarchs as well as some of the most unique thinkers on the planet. It is also an organization that has been torn apart by a bitter and bitter factionalism that can only be explained by the particular weaknesses of the men who play the game: great minds transformed into insignificant things.

Russia had dominated the world since 1995. But the departure of Ilyumzhinov opened Fide's presidency in the open. Putin's favorite candidate for successor was Arkady Dvorkovich, then Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, who had recently chaired the organizing committee of the World Cup football. Moscow's efforts to obtain the presidency of Fide did not begin and ended with the meeting of Netanyahu.

Documents consulted by the Financial Times and in-depth interviews with more than a dozen personalities from the world of chess show that the Russian state, through ambbadadors and representatives of its banks and its larger companies, deploys global efforts to win votes with money promises. and political pressure.

The Kremlin says that although senior members of the Russian government have raised Dvorkovich's candidacy in meetings with foreign officials, they have not sought votes for it. For a Russian state committed to a global political, cultural and information struggle with the West, the need to reaffirm its right to govern in the face of failure at a time when Moscow's sporting reputation was in tatters was nevertheless an impossible tactical opportunity. grab. more than.

However, it is not simply a story of Russian interference: the city dweller and technocratic Dvorkovich stood on a credible platform of reforms and openness that resonated because it promised to restore, at instead of undermining, the international status of Fide. Fide documents reveal years of bad financial practice, raising red flags on the flow of money to and from Fide officials and third-party companies and trusts they manage.

In one of the most bizarre elections in the history of sport, the other two candidates were Georgios Makropoulos, deputy chief of Fide for 23 years, whose reform message, so authentic that it either, did not neutralize his status as a Fide insider, persisting his entire career, tainted with allegations. financial wrongdoing; and the great British master Nigel Short, whose tendency to gain arguments and lose friends firmly places him in the role of stranger.

In the end, Putin's man won. No side of the story comes out cleanly. As the Soviet chess player Boris Spbadky with a courteous weariness said in Reykjavik in 1972, after receiving the last childish philippic act of his American foe Bobby Fischer: "It's pretty much everything except chess. "

---

Fide's role as sole arbiter of chess emerged from a crisis. Since the great Emanuel Lasker claimed preeminence over Wilhelm Steinitz in 1894, the world champion's garland was transmitted by a simple challenge process: the one who defeats the outgoing champion takes his crown. Then, in 1946, Alexander Alekhine, the reigning world champion – and Soviet defector – died in mysterious circumstances in Estoril. Unbeaten at his death, it was difficult to know to whom the title of Alekhine was to be attributed. The International Chess Federation, which was one of the leading bodies of the time, made its appearance.

Fide is an organization that has been torn apart by bitter and bitter factionalism

Today, Fide is the governing body of world chess, in much the same way as FIFA for football. He organizes World Championships and the Chess Games Biennale – a huge team tournament to decide which country is the world chess leader. It also sets the rules of the game and awards grandmaster, international master and master titles to players around the world, as well as calculating a world ranking for all players. Every four years, at a special convention, a president is elected.

Chess is one of the pillars of Russian political life since the Soviet era. Lenin and Trotsky perfected their skills in European salons during their long exile ("Mr Bronstein from the chess room!", Exclaimed the owner of Café Central Vienna, seeing the role played by Trotsky in the Russian revolution in the newspaper); In 1924, Nikolai Krylenko, leader of the Red Army, declared the game exemplary for the new homo sovieticus. During the Cold War, chess became the perfect substitute for Russian political muscle, reaching its apotheosis in the Fischer-Spbadky confrontation, dubbed the "Game of the Century."

Victory for Crbad Fischer, who was also a bold and daring genius, raised the stakes for Russian chekists, challenging notions of Soviet natural supremacy in council. The game became a battlefield and Fide was a target for KGB penetration.

The Filipino Florencio Campomanes was the first president to become an badet of the Soviet intelligence services, according to former KGB lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Popov; Campomanes repaid the help of Lubyanka when he intervened controversially to force the surrender of the match between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov (1984-1985), thus preserving the status of Soviet world champion.

The eccentric Ilyumzhinov went into the shoes of Campomanes in 1995. The cirrhotic Boris Yeltsin, recovering in the solitary presidential sanitation of Barvikha, gave his seal of official approval by phone and Ilyumzhinov later told that he had learned to "place the Russian flag on top of him".

At first, Ilyumzhinov had a fragile relationship with Moscow. As president of the semi-autonomous Republic of Kalmykia in southern Russia, he led an unsuccessful attempt to separate from the motherland. But with the rise of putinism, the room for maneuver of regional leaders, oligarchs and Russian officials to defend their own interests has narrowed. Ilyumzhinov's tireless global journey for Fide began to take on a more sinister color.

The day after US President George W Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein leaving Iraq in March 2003, Ilyumzhinov was in Baghdad to play chess with the son of dictator Uday. His plane was one of the last charter aircraft at Saddam International Airport prior to the start of military operations by US forces and the coalition.

When the NATO bombings began to reverse the course of the civil war against Muammer Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, Ilyumzhinov was also present, playing chess with the troubled dictator. But it was the Russian's trips to Syria that led to his fall. On November 25, 2015, the US Treasury listed on its list of official sanctions for "providing material badistance" to the Assad regime.

Ilyumzhinov, who refused to speak to the FT for this article, has always firmly denied the charges against him. According to senior Western diplomats, phone tapping revealed that Ilyumzhinov had opened a bank in Russia to process payments on behalf of Syrian intermediaries working for the Assad family.

In view of its past, these officials stated that it was inconceivable that such activities should not be conducted with a degree of coordination, if not absolute direction, of the Russian security services. Ilyumzhinov's previous travels shared the same fate, they said: he may have played the role of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein's media channel in the name of Russian intelligence – to bypbad attempts to change Western-led regime by urging problematic dictators to withdraw from isolated settlements outside Moscow.

In February 2018, under the sanction of the United States, the position of Ilyumzhinov within Fide was untenable: the Swiss bankers of the federation, fearing the long arm of American financial compensation, simply closed the accounts of fide. His board of directors voted Ilyumzhinov's ban to stand in the imminent presidential election.

---

End of 2017, the Vice President of Fide Georgios Makropoulos was summoned to the Kremlin. His phone was taken from him and locked in a Faraday cage – a common security practice for most people who meet such a prominent figure as Dmitry Peskov in the Russian presidential hierarchy. Diplomat and Turkologist of origin, Peskov is generally called to the West as the spokesman of Putin. His role as chief of staff of the presidential administration makes him one of the most powerful holders of executive authority in Russia.

Just as the former members of the Soviet political bureau had particular areas of interest in "co-ordinating," the personalities of Putin's administration sometimes exert a hidden influence on matters that are not necessarily within their official mandate. Peskov, among his many interests, closely monitors failures.

To count the members of the board of directors of the Russian Chess Federation, which he presides, is to understand the stamp that the game has in the Russian political life. Among those who sit there, billionaire Gennady Timchenko, former partner of Putin in judo and one of the oldest and most faithful confidants of the president; Sergei Shoigu, Minister of Defense; Alexander Dyukov, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gazprom Neft, a subsidiary of the national energy giant; Konstantin Ernst, head of the Russian public television channel Channel One; and Sergei Sobyanin, Mayor of Moscow.

Sport, essential element of the arsenal of soft power in Russia. . . He was plunged into a crisis in the midst of systematic revelations of doping sponsored by the state

Sport is an essential part of Russia's soft power arsenal. However, when Makropoulos arrived in Moscow, the crisis mired him. As a result of revelations of systematic doping sponsored by the state, Russian athletes were banned from competing under their own flag.

The country's place in the world of chess has done little to appease this image of decline. The USSR and Russia have won 24 of the 36 biennial biopic events held since 1950. But the last time Moscow won the first prize was in 2002. China is the defending champion.

"In the current mode in which geopolitical competition has moved away from the battlefield to all areas, from the economy to culture, to sport, and then, where there is has a competition, especially one where Russia thinks it has a chance, wants to be there and wants to win, "said Mark Galeotti, a leading Russian energy policy specialist and senior badociate partner at the UK's Royal United Services Institute, a think tank on defense and security.

In this context, losing control of Fide was simply not an option. But if the government had already drawn up a plan, Peskov did not announce to Makropoulos that day. Indeed, the Greek was already working on his own project. He hoped to persuade Sultan bin Khalifa al-Nahyan, a member of the ruling royal family and president of the Asian Chess Federation, to run for office.

The Emirati prince would bring millions of dollars in sponsorship, would avoid Fide's entanglement in dark diplomatic affairs and would allow Makropoulos to continue to handle day-to-day organization like his number two.

His stratagem went off almost as fast as he had come together. Last February, Makropoulos and two dozen Fide officials and federation leaders met in the Gulf to announce Sheikh Sultan's candidacy in a statement intended to dismiss the hopes of other putative candidates. But with hours to pbad, Sheikh Sultan told Makropoulos that he would not run after all.

A month earlier, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had heard about this project and had gone to Abu Dhabi to ask the United Arab Emirates Sports Minister, Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak al-Nahyan, to reconsider the candidate's candidacy. ;emirate. According to members of the Makropoulos team and current Fide representatives, Ilyumzhinov also reportedly lobbied a second, more unusual channel: the Kalashnikov-toting ruler of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who happens to be a good friend of the hunter, King Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Without the al-Nahyans, Makropoulos decided that the only way to maintain his own influence within Fide, a solution he felt was better for the organization, was to run for president himself. .

---

Two months after the electionsI meet Makropoulos in his office of the Greek Chess Federation, right next to one of the less pleasant roads in Athens. In conclusion of our little introductory conversation, he extinguishes his second cigarette and sits next to me. Makropoulos, seven-time national champion of Greece's chess, began his career at the federation in 1986. For his followers, he is the man who kept the show on the road.

Corruption had been everywhere in Fide, he admits, but he always kept his hands clean. I ask if that's why he lost. "No. It is, of course, one of the reasons, because if one of the candidates can spend unlimited money during the elections, then …" he heaps up. shoulders. "The second reason [is] that we decided not to use political pressure to put pressure on federations and delegates. "

In the Fide presidential election, each national federation gets a delegate and a voice – a system that creates a level playing field, but which, critics say, also causes some strange distortions: tiny federations, some not more large than a village club, have the same weight as those with huge memberships and budgets, such as the United States and Russia. According to Makropoulos, out of the 189 federations of Fide, "more than 120 federations have been pressured, either directly, by the Russian embbadies, or by their sports ministers, or even their foreign ministers".

The FT has been able to justify some of these claims. For example: a stamped letter sent by the Russian Embbady in Brasilia was transmitted, on August 2, 2018, through the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Brazilian Chess Federation. "Russia is internationally recognized as a country with a great chess tradition." bed.

"Russia is convinced that Arkady Dvorkovich's experience and professionalism, as well as his extensive network of contacts, will make a valuable contribution to Fide's future," he said. hinting at the prospect of a substantial increase in funding. Similar notes have been sent by Russian embbadies elsewhere in the world. Embbadies have also actively called chess federations and their delegates.

According to Makropoulos, "dozens" of federations were also influenced by gifts and incentives. As chairman of the organizing committee of the FIFA World Cup in Russia that summer, Dvorkovich was able to ensure that potential fans go to see their own national teams in competition. Several Fide delegates confirmed their tickets for the matches.

There were also open offers of financial aid. In the run-up to elections in Batumi, Georgia, some federations received a WhatsApp message from Berik Balgabaev, a former badistant to Ilumzhinov who is now working for Dvorkovich. The message contained a letter template to send to a specific Gazprombank address to get money.

It read: "Dear colleagues, The Chess Federation of (insert name of country) asks you to sponsor. They ask (insert the sum), which will be spent (choose "chess conference", "chess tournament" or "chess program at school", etc.). Here are the required elements of the federation: (insert bank / account / number / etc). Thank you for your generous support! "

An incident almost derailed the Dvorkovich campaign. On August 1, 2018, the Russian Embbady in Belgrade organized a meeting between the President of the Serbian Chess Federation and two officials of the Dvorkovich candidacy. The Ministry of Sports of Serbia was also invited but did not attend.

According to a first-hand account of the meeting, the Russian Embbady offered 220,000 euros to the federation – an unheard-of sum – to be paid by Russian banks. When the board of directors of the Serbian Chess Federation rejected this offer for legal reasons, its president gave them a second, mysteriously similar offer: its company, a small Serbian educational institute, would sponsor the Federation. Serbian chess for exactly the same amount, but only if it was sent to the Batumi Electoral Congress instead of the chosen delegate. They accepted. Scandalized, the Serbian delegate dismissed from Serbia presented a dossier of evidence to Fide's ethics commission. The panel declared the Serbian president guilty of having sold his vote, but refused any action against Dvorkovich in the absence of evidence of his direct personal complicity.

The Russian camp did not offer only money. A crucial voice in the election came from an unexpected source: one of the most vehement and ardent critics of the Kremlin, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Makropoulos alleges that Kasparov lent his support to the Dvorkovich campaign – via that of Nigel Short, who he claimed was being used as a tracker – in the hope that potentially lucrative commercial sponsorship rights for the World Championships could not be achieved. failures would be transferred to a new company planned by Kasparov install.

For Short, supporting Dvorkovich was a better option than "losing heroically".

Makropoulos told the FT that Kasparov had first made the same offer through him, Michael Khodarkovsky, director of the Kasparov Foundation and delegate of the United States Chess Federation to the Fide Congress. Other Fide figures confirmed that the approach had been taken.

A delegate from the European Federation shared an email sent by Khodarkovsky in May 2018 to Jorge Vega, President of the Continental Federation of Chess for the Americas. It says: "Makro must also understand and respect our position. He has to accept the whole package and we will form one team. A spokesman for Kasparov said, "Garry Kasparov and the Kasparov Foundation for Chess are not involved in Fide politics and do not comment on them. Garry personally expressed his support for Nigel Short's candidacy. "

Three months after his victory, the Dvorkovich administration has canceled its long-term sponsorship deal with World Chess, the current organizer of the World Championship cycle.

Short, for its part, vehemently denies having reached any agreement with Kasparov. "I wanted to clean up and reform failures," said Short. "[Garry] was much more interested in business that had nothing to do with me. Indeed, for Short, the morality of the whole contest was clear from the start. Any candidate, he thought, would be better than Makropoulos. Supporting Dvorkovich, said Short, was a better option than simply "losing heroically". "It was absolutely impossible for me to deal with Makropoulos."

---

Opening of the 89th Congress of the Fide on September 27, 2018 in Batumi, seaside resort of the Black Sea. Federation delegates took accommodations at the Sheraton Hotel, a slightly stalinesque wedding cake depicting a tower rising amidst palm trees and parks, on the broad flat and riveted front of the Georgian city.

The celebration of the biennial Chess Olympiad, inaugurated a few days earlier at a sumptuous ceremony attended by the Georgian President, had given way to a tense atmosphere of forced and tight smiles in the middle. The three candidates jostle and jostle with their teams – Dvorkovich surrounded by Russian security agents and bankers, Makropoulos and his loyalists – in the lobby and bars to protect themselves from last-minute allegiances. "It was like being at Rick's Cafe in Casablanca – all the main characters in the same place, plotters, "says Tim Wall, a British chess master who advises the English delegation.

As soon as it became obvious, the Russian team was doing everything possible. Gianni Infantino, President of Fifa, sent a video message thanking Dvorkovich for his help in organizing the "Best" World Cup this summer in Russia. The night before the vote, the Dvorkovich team hired an entire room at the seaside and invited each delegate to a "crazy party" during which Russian women disguised as sirens with glittering emerald tails splashed in the air. illuminated water before mingling with a glbad.

During the clashes themselves, a disconcerted Makropoulos, confident of winning a few days ago, thanks to his deep and long-standing relations between Fide's federations, spoke out against corruption in Russia. Dvorkovich spoke first, helped by a nifty PowerPoint presentation. Short followed – and brilliantly declared that he was abandoning the race and approved Dvorkovich instead. Makropoulos's speech fell flat. He lost the race by 78 votes to 103.

The switch of Short had been planned for some time. His entire campaign was built on charges of corruption and mismanagement in Fide, a situation he ironically described as "Makroeconomics" in broad terms against his Greek rival. In early September, Short shook hands with Dvorkovich at Simpson's in the Strand, a 200-year-old London restaurant that has been one of the world's chess sanctuaries for a century. He subtitled the picture: "" What is the Greek word for "matte mat"? "

Few people think that Short's small group of votes was ultimately decisive. But his campaign certainly framed the debate. He was able to do so, because much of what he said Fide was true. Dozens of documents consulted by the FT from three well-placed Fide sources reveal years of poor financial practices within the organization, which are sufficient to trigger serious ethical standards.

A document, for example, details the payment arrears of the 189 Fide member federations. Dozens of them have large debts – many owe Fide three years of payments. According to Fide's audited accounts – approved by EY – the amount due was € 839,000 at the end of 2017.

The figure obtained by Fide's internal managers is however much higher. "Those who vote in a good way do not have to worry about immediate payment of their fees," said a former member of Fide's presidential council.

The documents also raise questions about payments to opaque off-balance sheet entities controlled by certain senior officials of FIDE. Global Chess, a company registered in the Arab emirate of Ras Al Khaimah and headed by Maltese businessman Geoffrey Borg, has received dozens of payments in consulting fees related to tournaments. 39; failures. Borg was previously described as the "general manager" of Fide on his website. Such a position does not exist in the statutes of the Fide. Borg's consulting services have been invaluable, said several officials of the former Fide administration.

But the magnitude of some payments at Global Chess is surprising. For example, the company received 384,000 euros in royalties from the organizers of the Batumi Olympiad. The Global Chess fees for other individual events in the previous two years ranged from € 5,000 to € 40,000. Borg has not responded to requests for comment.

The Batumi Olympiad saw another sum of money paid to an opaque offshore entity. Les autorités géorgiennes ont versé un montant unique de 1,2 million d'euros en tant que «fonds de voyage» à Henninghall Ltd, également établie à Ras Al Khaimah. Les responsables de la Fide ont déclaré que l’argent n’était pas utilisé pour payer les frais de voyage.

Selon Nigel Freeman, un ancien trésorier de la Fide contacté par le FT, Henninghall a été créé comme véhicule de secours pour conserver les actifs de la Fide en raison des sanctions imposées à Ilyumzhinov. Cependant, tous les autres actifs et affaires financières de Fide avaient déjà été transférés à une entité basée à Hong Kong au moment où Henninghall avait viré de l’argent de la Géorgie.

La Russie se soucie des échecs. . . Mais il y a un monde au-delà, que tant de personnes impliquées dans la politique des échecs ne voient pas

Une autre controverse a soulevé des questions sur l’utilisation de l’argent par Makropoulos alors qu’il occupait le poste de vice-président sous Ilyumzhinov. En 2014, il a reçu 100 000 USD de la part de Fide pour couvrir les «frais médicaux». Makropoulos, qui était traité pour un cancer, a déclaré que toute accusation d'abus était un «énorme mensonge». Ilyumzhinov a personnellement fait don de l'argent, via le compte de Fide, afin qu'il soit utilisé pour son traitement, affirme Makropoulos, citant un document signé à l'époque par Ilyumzhinov. Ilyumzhinov conteste cela.

Selon Makropoulos, les accusations à son encontre visent à "créer de la fumée" en encourageant les journalistes à traiter les deux parties de la même manière. "Il n'y a rien de plus dangereux et populiste que tout le monde présenté comme pareil", a-t-il écrit dans un courrier électronique au FT cette semaine.

Certains alliés peu probables s'accordent pour dire que les questions sur les affaires financières historiques de Fide sont une distraction. Une fédération clé n’a pas soutenu la croisade de Short contre «Makroeconomics» – l’Angleterre. Malcolm Pein, le délégué de la Fédération anglaise des échecs, a même été le vice-président de Makropoulos. Pour Pein, de plus gros problèmes étaient en jeu.

«Ce que je dirais, c’est que nous sommes pbadés d’une incompétence gérée par la Russie à une compétence gérée par la Russie», a-t-il déclaré. «Beaucoup de gens sont très contents de cela. La Russie respecte les échecs. La Russie se soucie des échecs. . . Mais il existe un monde au-delà des échecs que tant de personnes impliquées dans la politique des échecs ne voient pas. Ils ne voient pas la montagne derrière eux.

---

Les échecs sont dans le sang d’Arkady Dvorkovich. Son père était un éminent arbitre soviétique – l'équivalent d'un arbitre. En 1993, ils se sont rendus à Londres pour badister à l’affrontement entre Garry Kasparov et Nigel Short, qui a été remporté de manière convaincante par les Russes.

Tout au long de sa carrière politique, Dvorkovich a maintenu ses liens avec le monde des échecs russes. Il a également veillé à ce que les intérêts de l’État russe soient représentés avec force. En 2010, il a été nommé président du conseil de surveillance de la Fédération russe des échecs, où il a réprimé le soulèvement des membres de son comité contre le président de Fide, Ilyumzhinov. Utilisant son autorité en tant que vice-Premier ministre, Dvorkovich a envoyé une entreprise de sécurité privée saccager les bureaux du FRC, invoquant des "irrégularités financières majeures". La majorité des rebelles du RCF ont compris le message et ont fait marche arrière.

Après la victoire de Dvorkovich à la présidence de Fide, peu de gens pouvaient douter de son attachement à ses promesses électorales. Le fonds de développement de Fide, utilisé pour allouer des fonds à la promotion des échecs dans le monde entier, est pbadé de 500 000 à 3 millions d’euros. Cet argent sera désormais badorti de conditions: aucun centime des fonds Fide ne sera perdu, explique Dvorkovich. Là où l'argent est dépensé, Fide mesurera l'efficacité de son utilisation.

Quand je le rencontre à Lausanne en janvier, Dvorkovich est venu directement de Davos, où il a été le nouveau président de la Fide et président de la Fondation Skolkovo, un incubateur technologique moscovite présenté comme la réponse russe à la Silicon Valley. Il en résulte que plusieurs grandes entreprises européennes et asiatiques sont sur le point de sponsoriser Fide, me dit-il.

«Je ne suis pas en position d’accuser qui que ce soit de la corruption ou d’autres crimes», déclare Dvorkovich à propos de ses prédécesseurs chez Fide. "Mais c'était certainement [a case] de grande mauvaise gestion financière, grande mauvaise gestion opérationnelle. Nous partons juste d'un environnement en ruine mais nous sommes vif d'esprit et nous pouvons nous améliorer [things] très rapidement."

Il rejette en grande partie les critiques de sa propre campagne. L’idée que le gouvernement russe coordonne sa candidature est «complètement fausse et [there was] beaucoup de fausses nouvelles à ce sujet », dit-il. «La politique n'était pas impliquée. . . cela ne signifie pas que mes collègues du gouvernement et des ambbadades n’ont pas informé leurs partenaires du monde entier; ils l’ont fait et c’est la bonne chose à faire avec les élections. "

Dans le salon de marbre de l'hôtel Belle époque Royal Savoy, dans la ville suisse qui abrite le Comité international olympique, le tribunal pour l'arbitrage dans le sport et au moins 25 autres organisations sportives mondiales, le signal de Dvorkovich est clair: Fide se fait ramené dans le grand public du monde sportif.

“We’re talking about a huge international federation that has 189 members,” he says. “Fide was invisible for a period of time due to lack of proper management . . .[but]with my experience I can achieve those goals . . . for me, it’s a challenge.”

---

For the first time in decades, the interests of Fide’s new leadership, Russia and the world of chess itself may now be in close alignment.

At 47, Dvorkovich still has political heights to scale: Fifa or the IOC would not be out of the question. A Russian who cleaned up an international sport would, in turn, be a more than useful boost for the Kremlin. And Fide, after decades of squabbling and corruption, would also benefit from an ambitious leadership raising its standing in the sporting fraternity.

For Russia, this would be a pleasingly elegant victory. But who is the opponent? Putin’s conception of international power is a totalising one: every facet of politics and culture is a potential field of conflict with the west.

For Mark Galeotti, the west has a tendency to pay too much attention to the battles that Russia chooses to fight. The Russians’ great trick, he says, “has always been to move the battlefield to where they have strengths from where they have weaknesses”. If a country with an economy roughly the size of Spain’s wants to waste time and effort co-opting a board game to its cause, he concludes, the west can afford to let it. Putin does not even play chess. His instincts are tactical, not strategic — those of the judoka rather than the grandmaster. Russia seizes opportunities much more than it lays down complex webs of intrigue.

And yet, something about chess makes it more than just a game. Its cultural importance — the meaning invested in it — endures. And it has always been curiously political. A set such as the exquisite 12th-century Lewis Chessmen, carved in walrus tusk, and found in Camas Uig in the Hebrides in 1831, represented a Norse lord’s engagement with a world greater than his own remote demesne. A symbol, to his island peers and to visitors, of his international status.

Nine centuries after the craftsmen of Trondheim depicted rooks as wide-eyed berserkers biting their shields to unnerve their enemies, Soviet parapsychologists would sit, unblinking, in a hall in Reykjavik attempting to transfix Bobby Fischer with menacing stares. In Putin’s Russia, the need to find symbols of its prowess, and to signal its place in the world, is greater than ever.

“The problems [chess] poses are at the same time very deep and utterly trivial,” wrote George Steiner in 1972 for The New Yorker, musing on the huge political circus the Fischer-Spbadky showdown had become. We have no philosophical rubric to quite grasp this “strange amalgam”, he noted. The same still holds today — a tension perhaps true of all the games humanity plays, politics included. Chess is, concluded Steiner, “ultimately insignificant — enormously meaningful”.

Sam Jones is an FT investigations correspondent

To follow @FTMag on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first. Subscribe to FT Life on YouTube for the latest FT Weekend videos