FIDE presidential debate 2026: what Turlov and Buettner proposed, and what FIDE's accounts say about it

Short answer

The first debate of the FIDE presidential election, broadcast by Chess.com on 9 September 2026 and moderated by Maurice Ashley, ended with two of the three candidates: Wadim Rosenstein gave his opening statement and lost his connection. Timur Turlov promised a development fund of more than US$6 million and presented himself as the federation's financial backstop; Jan Henric Buettner promised to hand 20% of revenue to the federations and to take that revenue to US$50 million. This piece checks the quotes against the recording, compares the three platforms in a table and measures the promises against FIDE's 2024 accounts, when the development fund spent €1.35 million.

Event: FIDE presidential election 2026

How this was compiled: Debate broadcast by Chess.com on 9 September 2026. Quotes were checked by us against the automatic captions of the official recording, with the timestamp given in the text. FIDE figures come from the Verification Commission report on the 2024 accounts; Turlov's campaign website was checked on 10 September and did not yet carry the fund proposal.

The essentials in a few lines

• Only two of the three candidates debated: Wadim Rosenstein gave his opening statement, lost his connection and never returned, despite Chess.com's attempts to reconnect him through other channels.
• Timur Turlov promised a development fund of “above $6 million” for open tournaments, arbiter training, coaching and player travel, without saying whether the figure is annual and without publishing the promised detail by 10 September.
• Jan Henric Buettner promised to hand 20% of FIDE's revenue to its 204 federations and to take that revenue to US$50 million, estimating €15,000 to €30,000 per federation in the first year.
• In FIDE's 2024 accounts the development fund spent €1,347,308, and general donations and sponsorship brought in €166,000 against a budget of €3 million.
• The election is on 26 September 2026, at the General Assembly in Samarkand, with one vote per federation and a term running to 2030.

A debate announced with three and fought by two

The rules were read out at the start. FIDE has around 200 member federations, each with one vote, and the election takes place on 26 September at the General Assembly held in Samarkand during the Olympiad. The winner serves until 2030, and every candidacy is a ticket with a deputy from another federation: Turlov runs with Viswanathan Anand, Buettner with Malcolm Pein and Rosenstein with Gordon Tang. The speaking order was drawn at random, and each block had two questions.

Rosenstein spoke first, for a little over two minutes. He said FIDE “cannot be bought”, that the Electoral Commission had rejected the complaints against him and that he would be available to federations “24/7”. At the 18-minute mark of the recording Ashley announced he had disconnected after his statement; back from the break, around the 50-minute mark, he said Chess.com had tried to reconnect him through other channels, without success.

By 10 September we had found no public explanation from Rosenstein for the disconnection, and this piece does not speculate about one. The practical consequence is a different matter: of the three platforms, only two faced questions. What is compared here about Rosenstein comes from the programme he published in writing, and the difference in sourcing is flagged in the table in the fifth section.

Turlov: a fund above $6 million and the president as backstop

The proposal came in the block on money, in answer to a question from the Nepal federation, at the 28-minute mark. Turlov, founder and CEO of Freedom Holding and president of the Kazakhstan Chess Federation and of the International School Chess Federation, used his own country as the example: according to him, resources placed with the same people produced more than 140 medals last year. He also promised to simplify the rules for accessing the fund.

His central argument was the backstop. Turlov said he had been FIDE's main financial backstop for the past three years and argued that good governance is necessary but not sufficient without a firm commitment of money — outside sponsors, he said, tend to concentrate on the world's top ten or twenty players. He mentioned contacts with Nvidia, Citi and large cloud providers, without announcing any deal. And he maintained that FIDE is a regulator and a non-profit that should cooperate with commercial platforms rather than compete with them.

In the other blocks he proposed biometric identification through face recognition for anyone playing competitive chess online, and offered ChessBase resources, on a non-profit basis, for an anti-cheating tool open to federations. On time controls he backed keeping classical chess and adding faster formats in consultation with Anand; on equal prize money for women he said it should come with time and with sponsorship, not by regulation.

Buettner: 20% of revenue and a professional executive board

The contrast with Turlov was the backbone of the debate. For Buettner, co-founder of Freestyle Chess with Magnus Carlsen, the president's job “is not to finance FIDE” but to build a federation that can finance itself; big brands, he said, do not invest in a body that depends on one person's pocket. He cited the US$27.5 million he says he raised for a single Freestyle tour, and compared FIDE with Formula 1 and football, where nobody expects the president to cover the bills.

The proposed structure separates the elected political council from an executive board with a CEO, a CFO and heads of marketing, events, legal and development, whose names he promised to announce in Samarkand. He has already named Vukani Dlamini as treasurer. On fair play he argued for a common framework with platforms and arbiters and for due process — “no algorithm should become a secret court”. On digital, he criticised the outsourcing of FIDE Online Arena without a tender and described online chess as a gateway into organised chess.

One difference in wording is worth recording. In the debate, at the 32-minute mark, Buettner spoke of growing “the FIDE revenue to 50 million”; the manifesto on his campaign website says “bring USD 50 million of new commercial revenue into chess”, which is not the same thing. The manifesto also lists numerical targets that did not come up in the debate: 10 million children in school chess programmes, 10,000 coaches and arbiters trained, a 50% rise in female participation, 100 new international tournaments and quarterly transparency reports.

Rosenstein: what the written programme says

Rosenstein, a German businessman and founder of WR Group and WR Chess, treats his opponents' fixed percentages as an irresponsible promise: “my plan is to expand the Development Fund and build a professional commercial department that grows total revenue first”. As a credential he cites more than €1 million in new prize money brought into chess by WR Chess.

On governance, the programme includes a two-term limit, a separation between political functions and management, and a ban on FIDE employees holding conflicting roles in private companies. For federations it proposes a toolkit with sponsorship and event templates, simpler applications to the development fund and a named FIDE contact for each one. On ratings it suggests making inactivity visible and giving more weight to active players, rather than deducting points automatically.

The caveat is about sourcing, not merit: these proposals were never tested in the debate. No community question reached Rosenstein, and neither Turlov nor Buettner had the chance to answer them live. In his opening statement, the only part he took part in, he offered no figures at all.

The three platforms side by side

The table brings together what each candidate said, with the source flagged. The Turlov and Buettner columns come from the debate recording, supplemented in Buettner's case by his manifesto; Rosenstein's comes from his written programme, because he took no part in the questions. Where a candidate did not address a topic, the cell says so instead of presuming a position.

The underlying disagreement is about who keeps FIDE going. Turlov, who already funds federation events, argues that without a firm commitment of money nobody can plan; Buettner, that dependence on a patron drives sponsors away; Rosenstein, that promising a percentage before growing revenue puts the cart before the horse. All three positions are internally consistent, and none can be verified before 2027.

Two disputes run through the campaign and stay out of the table because they are not proposals: all three tickets have filed complaints against one another with the Electoral Commission, and in the debate Buettner and Turlov disagreed over how Turlov's contributions should be classified in FIDE's accounts. They matter for the vote, but they do not change what each candidate promises to do.

What FIDE's accounts say about the promises

The figures come from the Verification Commission report on the 2024 financial statements. Of total income, €12.5 million comes from events. The development fund, which serves the four continental associations, national federations and social projects, fell 24.6% in 2023 and a further 2.86% in 2024, and the commission wrote that it is the first place to be cut when budgeted sponsorship fails to arrive — which is what happened in 2024, with €166,000 coming in against the €3 million expected.

That is the base against which the promises should be measured. A fund above US$6 million is roughly €5 million to €5.5 million, close to four times the 2024 spend; Turlov did not say whether the figure is annual. Buettner's 20%, applied to 2024 total income and split equally among 204 federations, would come to about €15,400 each — precisely the floor he announced. The €30,000 ceiling assumes doubling revenue in the first year. The equal split is our assumption, to give a sense of scale: the candidate did not say how the money would be divided.

Two claims made in the debate were not checked by us. Buettner said that in the 2025 accounts sponsorship and rights revenue was “absolutely zero”, that FIDE lost €500,000 on currency trades and that around 600,000 of the development fund went unused; the 2025 statements were not among the material we consulted. He also put FIDE's total budget at “10 or 12 million”, a figure that does not match the €15.7 million of income recorded for 2024. Turlov replied that whether his contributions are classified as sponsorship or as event revenue is a matter of accounting form, not substance.

Frequently asked questions

Update log

• 2026-09-10 — First publication, with quotes checked against the official recording and figures from FIDE's 2024 accounts.

Sources

• Chess.com Hosts First Ever FIDE Presidential Debate Moderated By GM Maurice Ashley (recording) — Chess.com / YouTube
• Verification Commission Report 2025 – 2024 financial statements — FIDE
• Jan Henric Buettner – Candidate for FIDE President 2026 (manifesto) — Buettner–Pein campaign
• Wadim Rosenstein and his vision for chess if he became the FIDE President — ChessBase India

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