FIDE is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the supreme body responsible for the organization of chess and its championships at global and continental levels.
FIDE awards a number of organizational titles, including International Arbiter, which signifies that the recipient is competent and trusted to oversee top-class competitions.
While they were debating procedures in 1937 and Alekhine and Euwe were preparing for their re-match later that year, the Dutch Chess Federation proposed that a super-tournament (AVRO) of ex-champions and rising stars should be held to select the next challenger.
Most chess writers and players strongly supported the Dutch super-tournament proposal and opposed the committee processes favored by FIDE.
FIDE found it difficult to organize the early discussions on how to resolve the interregnum, because problems with money and travel in the aftermath of World War II prevented many countries from sending representatives, most notably the Soviet Union.
These players were: Max Euwe (from The Netherlands); Botvinnik, Paul Keres and Salo Flohr (from the Soviet Union); and Reuben Fine and Samuel Reshevsky (from the United States).
FIDE soon accepted a Soviet request to substitute Vasily Smyslov for Flohr, and Fine withdrew in order to continue his degree studies in psychiatry, so five players competed, in a quintuple round robin.
The first controversy took place when Fischer alleged that, at the 1962 Candidates Tournament in Curaçao, the Soviet players Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres and Efim Geller had pre-arranged draws in their games played amongst themselves, and that Viktor Korchnoi, another Soviet player, had been instructed to lose to them (Fischer had placed 4th, well behind Petrosian, Keres and Geller).
Grandmaster Yuri Averbakh, a member of the Soviet delegation at the tournament, confirmed in 2002 that Petrosian, Keres and Geller privately agreed to draw their games.
Grandmaster Pal Benko agreed to relinquish his qualifying place at the Interzonal in Fischer's favor, and the other participants waived their right to claim the spot.
FIDE president Max Euwe interpreted the rules very flexibly to allow Fischer to play in the 1970 Interzonal at Palma de Mallorca, which he won convincingly.
Fischer then crushed Mark Taimanov, Bent Larsen (both 6–0) and Tigran Petrosian in the 1971 Candidates Tournament and won the title match with Spassky to become world champion.
While arranging the Candidates Tournament semi-final matches to be played in 1983, FIDE accepted bids to host Kasparov versus Victor Korchnoi in Pasadena, California.
Upon learning of this, Short reached out to Kasparov, who had harbored distrust for FIDE and its president, Florencio Campomanes, since the abrupt end of his 1984 title match against Anatoly Karpov.
Kasparov and Short concluded that FIDE had not secured the best financial deal for them and announced their decision to play under a new organization, the Professional Chess Association (PCA).
However, many FIDE delegates viewed Campomanes as corrupt, and he agreed to resign in 1995, provided his successor was Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the president of the Republic of Kalmykia.
[42] Several attempts to reunify the world championship in the following years failed for various reasons, including financial constraints and Kasparov's opposition to any plan requiring him to play in a qualifying series.
In 2000, Vladimir Kramnik defeated Kasparov in a match for the now-renamed Braingames World Chess Championship, as the PCA had dissolved by then.
Kramnik, like Kasparov, was unwilling to play in a qualifying series and strongly objected to FIDE's attempt to decide the world championship through annual knockout tournaments and to shorten game time limits.
FIDE decided to grant Topalov a "fast track" entry into the 2007-2009 cycle due to his inability to compete in the 2007 World Chess Championship Tournament.
[49] Agon subsequently organized the four events in the FIDE Grand Prix 2014–15,[50] the Candidates Tournament in 2014,[51] and the World Chess Championship in 2014.
[55] As a result, a new company, World Chess Limited, was registered shortly after, replacing Agon as the rights holder in the agreement with FIDE.
[56][57] The condition that Agon would be the sole organizer of Championship events was disputed originally by principally the Bulgarian Chess Federation, with respect to the Candidates matches for 2012.
[60] In response, FIDE's deputy vice president Georgios Makropoulos pointed out that the purported contract was a draft document.
[64] In the elections, held in Batumi (Georgia) in October 2018, Dvorkovich won by 103 votes to 78[65] against Makropoulos, after Nigel Short withdrew his candidacy at the last minute and expressed his support to the Russian candidate.
In January 2019, FIDE Director-General Emil Sutovsky announced that a new contract has been signed that continues a scaled-back relationship with World Chess (formerly known as AGON) through 2021.
In virtue of this new agreement, FIDE reasserted control over the 2020 Candidates and the World Championship match, which from now on will undergo an open bidding procedure.
[68] On March 22, 2022, FIDE decided to issue a six-month ban from competing in rated tournaments against Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin.
Karjakin had posted controversial statements on Twitter in which he declared his support for the invasion of Ukraine and for President Vladimir Putin's characterization of the war as a fight against Nazism.
[73] The French Chess Federation announced that they would not implement any restrictions on transgender players, considering the FIDE decision transphobic.