FIDE rejects Vaishali, Polgar's call to remove women titles in chess, warns of potential backlash: 'Can't rely on hype'

Indian Grandmaster R Vaishali kicked a storm in the world of chess after she recently admitted that women titles in the sport should be abolished . Vaishali, the third Indian woman to claim the Grandmaster title, was only expressing her views in support of what the legendary Judit Polgar has already said many times in the past.

Hungarian Grandmaster Judit Polgar, who is considered the greatest female chess player of all time, had stopped taking part in women-only events during her career due to lack of competition. She had a highly successful career, reaching the eighth position in world ranking and a peak Elo rating of 2735.

When asked about her views on Polgar’s opinion, Vaishali had said that “removing" women titles such as Woman Grandmaster (WGM) and Woman International Master (WIM) could "inspire more women to compete directly for GM titles.”

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International Chess Federation (FIDE) CEO Emil Sutovsky, however, is not in favour of Polgar and Vaishali’s views. He feels that rather than relying on “personal beliefs or dreams,” it’s important to ensure that emerging talents are not deprived of the opportunity to develop.

FIDE rejects calls to remove women titles in chess

Sutovsky said that the rating for the highest-ranked female players has been coming down over the years and hence, they need women-only events to compete and keep improving.

“In spite of all the efforts and increase in prize money, we have biggest gap for 15 years or so. If previously we had top female players at age of 15,16 and 17 reaching 2500, today we have just a couple of players above 2400 at the age of 17 or 18,” the FIDE CEO said.

“If we were to remove all the possibilities to compete in women-only events, if we were to remove the possibility to support travel and so on, I think we would deprive many of these talents of opportunity under, I think, a false pretence that we will try to prove that women can grow in open tournaments, better than they can by competing in women-only events.

“Once again, never restricting, but any women player should have a chance to compete and excel in girls-only or women-only events. But, of course, also to provide an opportunity to play in open events and compete on par with the best.”

The Israeli Grandmaster Emil Sutovsky went on to add that FIDE’s policies need to be dictated by data and not personal opinions.

“It is also important to rely on real data and not on some hype or some opinion, which is not based on anything rather than personal beliefs or dreams. It cannot work like that,” Sutovsky added.