Dvorkovich Confirms Third-Term Bid For FIDE President, Reversing Term-Limit Pledge
Fri, 03 Jul 2026
Incumbent Arkady Dvorkovich will seek a third term as FIDE President, despite previously voicing support for term limits, and has added Timur Turlov to his ticket as a running mate for deputy president.
Arkady Dvorkovich confirmed in early July that he will seek a third term as FIDE President, reversing an earlier position in which he had voiced support for term limits on the office. Timur Turlov joins his ticket as candidate for deputy president.Dvorkovich faces a contested field: former FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who led the federation from 1995 to 2018, has been building support in Africa; German organiser Wadim Rosenstein has emerged as a reform-minded candidate favored by some Western federations; and Jan Henric Buettner, the businessman behind the Freestyle Chess events, has also entered the race.The election will be held at the FIDE General Assembly during the Chess Olympiad in Samarkand this September. Candidacy papers are due two months ahead of the Congress, putting the effective deadline in mid-July — a deadline Dvorkovich's announcement was timed to meet.Dvorkovich, a Russian economist and former deputy prime minister, has led FIDE since 2018 and has overseen a period of rapid commercial growth in the sport, including expanded sponsorship deals and the rise of new formats such as Freestyle Chess — credentials his campaign is expected to lean on heavily against a field of rivals with less institutional experience.His bid comes as he separately faces a European Commission proposal to add him to the EU's Russia sanctions list over his public support for the war in Ukraine, a controversy likely to shadow the campaign regardless of how it is resolved.