January 10, 2020
Iran’s top-ranked chess player, Alireza Firouzja, has defected from Iran over its policy forbidding Iranians to play against Israelis.
Firouzja is just 16 years old and is the world’s second-highest ranked junior player.
News reports said he was considering changing his nationality after the Iranian chess federation withdrew its players from the upcoming World Rapid & Blitz in Moscow. He appeared at that competition in late December playing under the flag of FIDE, the international chess federation, and not as an Iranian. He came in second.
The Iranian Chess Federation had objected when Parham Maghsoodloo and Amin Tabatabaei played games against Israeli opponents in a blitz tournament that was part of the recent Sunway Sitges Chess Festival. The two said they didn’t know Israelis were among the many players they faced. Subsequently, the Iranian federation decided to withdraw the participation of all Iranian players from the World Rapid & Blitz, but Firouzja refused to go along with that decision.
“Firouzja has made his decision and has told us that he wants to change his nationality,” the Iranian Chess Federation’s president, Mehrdad Pahlavan-zadeh, told the Tasnim news agency.
“Firouzja is currently living in France [with his father] … and may want to play under the French or US flag,” Pahla-vanzadeh told the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).
Losing Firouzja would be a blow to the Iranian federation, which has produced two of the top juniors in recent years in Firouzja and Maghsoodloo.
Firouzja is the second major figure to defect from Iran in recent weeks because of its ban on competing against Israelis. In September, Saeed Mollai, one of the country’s most successful judo competitors, defected and has now taken Mongolian citizenship.
In April, Firouzja complied with the Iranian rules and refused to play against an Israeli in a tournament in Germany, thereby forfeiting the game and losing his chance to win the tournament.
