Freestyle Chess Grand Slam players pick 'Freestyle Chess Champion' title, decide to form independent association

The 12 members of the Freestyle Chess Players Club (FCPC) have decided to form an independent players’ association to protect their rights after an intense battle with the International Chess Federation, FIDE, it was announced on Monday. The Freestyle Chess operations also announced that the winner of the ongoing Freestyle Chess Grand Slam Tour 2025 will be crowned as the “Freestyle Chess Champion” and not “Freestyle Chess World Champion”.

The usage of the term “world champion” had become the stumbling block for the Freestyle Chess Operations, the organisers of the Grand Slam, as FIDE had consistently claimed that only they had the right to organise “world championships” as the governing body of the sport.

FIDE had threatened legal actions against Freestyle Chess Operations if the winner of the Grand Slam Tour was branded as a world champion. The World Chess Federation also asked the Grand Slam players to sign a waiver by 4 February to remain eligible for the World Chess Championship cycle. However, the condition of signing a waiver was removed after the Freestyle Tour agreed to drop the word world champion .

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Freestyle Tour decides against using world champion

The Freestyle Chess Operations on Monday announced through a press release that the 12 Freestyle Chess Players Club members have unanimously decided to temporarily avoid using “world”. It added that the aim is to counter FIDE’s claims of ownership over such a word.

“This was never our intention, as we have always called our events’ G.O.A.T. Challenge’ or ‘Grand Slam,’” Freestyle Chess co-founder Jan Henric Buettner in the statement. “It’s important to note that this decision was made by the players, not by Freestyle—and certainly not by FIDE.”

As per a recent FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky interview given to Hindustan Times, world champion D Gukesh has already signed the waiver with the global body. Fabiano Caruana, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Alireza Firouzja and Levon Aronian have confirmed recently that they did not sign any waiver while Hikaru Nakamura has said in the past that he will not be signing anything. World No.1 and co-founder of the Freestyle tour, Magnus Carlsen, has already said that he is not interested in playing in future FIDE events .

The statement added that the players and organisers will discuss the usage of the world champion for the 2026 tour at the end of the ongoing season.

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Freestyle Tour players decide to form independent association

Another major announcement made by the Freestyle Chess Players Club, which includes players with an Elo rating of above 2725, was that as a result of direct clashes with FIDE, they have decided to form an independent association for top chess players. This association will be staffed with “a qualified legal team”.

Mentioning FIDE’s pressure on players to sign a waiver, Buettner said that tactics from the global chess body were “outrageous” and FCPC is ready to take all necessary actions to protect its rights.

“These repeated harassments are outrageous,” said Buettner. “We strongly oppose FIDE’s coercive tactics, which pressure players to forgo their right to choose which events to play.“

“We were ready to take all necessary action to defend the freedom of the players,” Buettner added.

FIDE is yet to react to FCPC’s statement.