Turlov Asks FIDE to Remove Rosenstein From the Ballot Over Sponsorship Deal
By Douglas C · Fri, 04 Sep 2026
Just 24 hours after we recapped the FIDE presidential race, it has escalated sharply again. Timur Turlov has formally asked FIDE's Electoral Commission to remove rival candidate Wadim Rosenstein from the ballot entirely, and to suspend the German Chess Federation's voting rights, over a sponsorship agreement signed in the middle of the campaign.
Just 24 hours after we recapped the FIDE presidential race, it has escalated sharply again. Timur Turlov has formally asked FIDE's Electoral Commission to remove rival candidate Wadim Rosenstein from the ballot entirely, and to suspend the German Chess Federation's voting rights, over a sponsorship agreement signed in the middle of the campaign.The timeline behind the complaintAccording to a press release issued by the Turlov-Anand ticket on September 4, the German Chess Federation (DSB) appointed Rosenstein as its FIDE Delegate, the individual who casts the federation's actual vote, back in May 2026. In July, the federation nominated him for the FIDE presidency. Then, on August 19, roughly five weeks before the election, the DSB announced that Rosenstein and his company, WR Events, had become the federation's sponsor, in an arrangement the DSB itself described as one of the largest sponsorship contracts in its history.Turlov's argumentTurlov's position is that a sponsorship deal signed with a voting federation during the electoral period isn't a neutral business arrangement, it's a prohibited benefit, both for the candidate offering it and the federation accepting it. He pointed to a 2018 precedent in which FIDE's own Ethics Commission addressed a similar sponsorship arrangement tied to a delegate's appointment and voting rights. His campaign says the complaint has been submitted to the Electoral Commission in writing and shared with both Rosenstein and the DSB directly, and stresses that it targets the election specifically, not German players, clubs, or tournaments.A notable shift in positionThis marks a real change in how Turlov's own campaign has framed its complaints. In an earlier filing against the Rosenstein-Tang ticket in August, Turlov and running mate Viswanathan Anand explicitly asked the Electoral Commission only for an official warning, and Turlov stated directly at the time that the complaint was "not an attempt to remove an opponent from the election." This new filing asks for exactly that, Rosenstein's removal from the ballot, along with a sanction against an entire national federation's voting rights.Now what?This is now at least the fourth formal complaint filed between the three tickets since August, following Rosenstein's original complaint against Turlov's citizenship and business ties, Buettner's complaint alleging misuse of FIDE resources to help Turlov's campaign, and Turlov and Anand's earlier warning request against Rosenstein. None of these complaints have yet produced a public ruling from FIDE's Electoral Commission, even though the federation's own rules require eligibility decisions within 15 days of the vote, a deadline that's now bearing down fast with the September 26 General Assembly less than three weeks away. Whether the Commission addresses this newest complaint, along with everything already in front of it, before delegates arrive in Samarkand remains an open question.