World chess number one Magnus Carlsen has quit a major tournament after being told he couldn’t wear jeans.
The chess grandmaster was defending his titles at the Fide World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York when the incident occurred.
Officials said Carlsen had broken the dress code regulations by wearing jeans and asked him to change, but the 34-year-old refused.
Governing body Fide said it had issued the reigning champion with a $200 (£159) fine.
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Carlsen, world champion between 2013 and 2023, said he had a lunch meeting before the round and had to change quickly.
“I put on a shirt, jacket and honestly like I didn’t even think about jeans, even changed my shoes,” he told Take Take Take.
“I didn’t even think about it… First of all, I got a fine which is fine, and then I got a warning that I would not be paired if I didn’t go change my clothes. They said that I could do it after the third round today.
“I said ‘I’ll change tomorrow if that’s OK, I didn’t even realise it today’, but they said, ‘Well you have to change now’. At that point it became a bit of a matter of principle for me.”
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The world number one said he would not appeal the decision, adding: “Honestly, I am too old at this point to care too much.
“If this is what they want to do… I guess it goes both ways, right – nobody wants to back down – and this is where we are. It’s fine by me. I’ll probably head off to somewhere where the weather is a bit nicer than here.”
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In a tongue-in-cheek post on X later, Carlsen shared a photo of his jeans and jacket combination and wrote “OOTD” (outfit of the day).
Fide said in a statement that its rules were applied “impartially”, citing another case where a player was fined before changing his shoes.
Five-time World Chess champion Carlsen was embroiled in a dispute with rival Hans Niemann previously.
The Norwegian had accused Niemann of cheating after he was beaten at a tournament in 2022, but Niemann denied the allegations and said he would “strip fully naked” to prove his innocence.
The pair settled a $100m (£79m) lawsuit in August last year.
