FIDE CEO claims if women only competed in 'open' tournaments majority would quit chess

The CEO of FIDE (International Chess Federation) Emil Sutovsky has claimed that removing women-only events would deprive the majority of women of a chance to develop "under the false pretence" that they can grow by competing with men.

Sutovsky made a series of controversial remarks in an exclusive interview on the subject, "Do we need women-only titles and tournaments?' featured on the official FIDE YouTube channel on Sunday.

Just like most sports, chess also has gender-specific events. However, unlike, say cricket, football, tennis or other popular sports, chess does not have men-only events. Instead it has 'women's' and 'Open' tournaments, with the latter open for everyone irrespective of their gender.

The legendary Hungarian GM Judit Polgar stopped competing in women-only tournaments quite early in her career, saying they were not challenging enough. Thereafter she only competed in Open events and defeated almost all top-rated men, including Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik and Magnus Carlsen to name a few. In her prime, the 48-year-old was World No. 8, reaching an Elo rating of 2735, the highest ever achieved by women players.

Chinese GM Hou Yifan has maintained the same stand and she rarely competes in women-only events. The 31-year-old has a rating of 2633 (highest: 2686), and she no longer competes in women's World Championships despite being the World No. 1.

What Sutovsky said
According to the FIDE CEO, the ratings of top-rated women players have come down drastically in recent years. He said that while "top-rated players, at the age of 15, 16, 17, reached 2500" before, now "just a couple of players are rated above 2400 at the age of 17 or 18".
After Yifan, no other women players are rated above 2600. The second-ranked currently is China's Ju Wenjun (2561).

In this context, Sutovsky thinks it was imperative to continue with women-only events. "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 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."

According to the 47-year-old Israeli, while many women players have access to top chess coaches to develop their game, the vast majority want to compete with other women players.

"... for the vast majority, if they would not have a chance to excel in women's competition, not to prove themselves as champions of a continent or winning Grand Prix stages or getting WGM titles, they would be just deprived of an opportunity to develop as a player, and would have to quit chess."

Sutovsky said FIDE gives wildcard entry to women who prefer to play in Open tournaments. "If we have a player, who obviously, is suited to compete at the highest level... in every event we provide wildcards to women players, should they wish to participate. But it cannot be just artificially, that now we remove all women events and now they play open only, it would simply kill women's chess."