With only days remaining before the 2026 FIDE presidential election, a visa dispute in Uzbekistan has added a new complication to an already closely watched campaign — and put presidential candidate Wadim Rosenstein at the center of the controversy. Several delegates entitled to vote at the FIDE General Assembly have faced difficulties obtaining entry visas, prompting the International Chess Federation to warn that the congress could be relocated if voting rights cannot be guaranteed.
The dispute has also focused attention on the position taken by Wadim Rosenstein. While FIDE has stated that everyone entitled to participate and vote must be able to exercise that right, Rosenstein has argued against resolving the controversy by moving the electoral proceedings away from Uzbekistan.
Three Tickets Compete for the FIDE Presidency, Wadim Rosenstein Among Them
The FIDE presidential election is scheduled for September 26 during the General Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Under FIDE’s electoral system, every member federation represented at the General Assembly is entitled to one vote.
Three presidential tickets were submitted and subsequently approved for the election: German entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner is running with Malcolm Pein; Wadim Rosenstein is standing with Gordon Tang; and Kazakhstan Chess Federation president and Freedom Holding Corp. founder Timur Turlov is running with five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand.
That voting structure makes access to the General Assembly particularly important. Unlike systems where votes are weighted according to population, membership or sporting performance, each participating FIDE member federation has one vote. The presence or absence of even a relatively small group of delegates can therefore matter in a competitive election — a dynamic that has made Wadim Rosenstein’s stance on the visa dispute especially significant.
Visa Problems Become an Election Issue for Wadim Rosenstein’s Campaign
On September 16, FIDE publicly acknowledged that a number of players and participants in the FIDE Congress had not yet received the visas required to enter Uzbekistan.
More significantly for the presidential election, FIDE confirmed that the affected group included Congress delegates entitled to vote, as well as FIDE Council member Benard Wanjala. The federation did not publicly specify the total number of voting delegates still waiting for visas in that statement.
The FIDE Council made its position explicit: the Congress could be held only under conditions in which all people entitled to participate and vote were able to exercise those rights. If that could not be guaranteed, FIDE said it would consider relocating the Congress to different dates and another location.
Reports from the chess community provided additional details about individual visa cases. World Chess, for example, highlighted the situation involving Eswatini and reported that voting delegates from a number of federations were affected. Another presidential ticket, Jan Henric Buettner and Malcolm Pein, publicly confirmed that Eswatini delegate Vukani Dlamini was among those whose visa situation remained unresolved.
There is currently no publicly established evidence that visa decisions were deliberately designed to favor Wadim Rosenstein, Timur Turlov, Jan Henric Buettner or any other candidate. The documented problem is more limited: shortly before an election based on one vote per federation, some people entitled to vote had not been able to enter the host country.
Wadim Rosenstein Argues Against Moving the Election
Against that background, Wadim Rosenstein’s response attracted attention.
In a public statement titled “FIDE MUST NOT DISRUPT THE ELECTION PROCESS,” Rosenstein defended Uzbekistan’s record as an organizer of international events and argued that the host country should not be blamed for what he characterized as organizational problems connected with FIDE.
At the same time, Rosenstein called for equal treatment and equal access for all national federations. His proposed solution, however, was not to relocate the election but to resolve the problems while keeping the established electoral process in place.
“The solution is not to move the problem from Samarkand. The solution is to fix the problem within FIDE,” Rosenstein wrote in the statement.
The statement was also reproduced and discussed by World Chess.
This position created an obvious procedural question. FIDE had said it could relocate the Congress if voting rights could not be guaranteed, while Wadim Rosenstein argued that relocation itself could disrupt the electoral process.
World Chess, in a commentary critical of Rosenstein’s position, questioned how equal access could be guaranteed if voting took place in a country that some accredited delegates were still unable to enter. The outlet also discussed possible electoral explanations for his position, but those explanations were presented as speculation rather than established fact. Rosenstein did not state that his position was based on assumptions about which candidates the affected delegates might support.
Sponsorship Dispute Involving Wadim Rosenstein and the German Chess Federation
The visa dispute follows another controversy involving Wadim Rosenstein and the German Chess Federation, or Deutscher Schachbund (DSB).
In May 2026, the DSB appointed Rosenstein as its delegate to FIDE. The federation described the appointment as a sports-political decision and noted that its FIDE delegate has influence and voting rights at meetings of the international federation.
On August 19, the DSB announced a sponsorship agreement with WR Events and Rosenstein. According to the federation, the partnership included support for women’s chess, inclusion programs and youth development.
On August 28, Turlov and Anand filed a separate complaint against Wadim Rosenstein and the German Chess Federation. The complaint alleged electoral misconduct and improper financial influence arising from the sponsorship arrangement and asked, among other things, for Rosenstein to be excluded from the presidential candidate list and for action against the DSB.
These allegations and the requested measures are described in FIDE’s own Electoral Commission report dated September 5.
Rosenstein and the DSB rejected the allegations. Their response argued that the sponsorship represented a legitimate commercial relationship, was independent of FIDE voting behavior and contained no explicit quid pro quo connected with nominations or votes. The German Chess Federation separately said that negotiations over the partnership had started months before the official election period.
The Electoral Commission did not remove Wadim Rosenstein from the election or strip Germany of its vote. Its report said the requests for Rosenstein’s formal exclusion from the presidential candidate list and for exclusion of the German federation were not admissible under the provisions invoked.
The Commission added that the allegations concerning possible breaches of the Ethics and Disciplinary Code were a separate issue and concluded that the matter fell within the competence of the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission. It adopted no interim measure against Rosenstein before the election.
Questions Concerning Wadim Rosenstein’s Russia-Linked Business Activity
A further issue entered the campaign in September when Ukrainian MP Oleg Dunda asked Ukrainian and German officials to examine allegations concerning Wadim Rosenstein’s business interests and possible sanctions compliance.
According to EU Reporter, the request concerned Wadim Rosenstein, WR Group Holding and the Russian company LLC WR Rus. The publication reported that Dunda asked officials to examine whether sanctions rules may have been violated.
The existence of such a request does not establish that Rosenstein or his companies violated sanctions legislation, and a request for authorities to conduct a review is not equivalent to an investigation result or finding of wrongdoing.
Rosenstein has separately addressed his past business activity in Russia. In an interview with Reuters, he said WR Group had previously carried out logistics, certification and other work in the country, including projects connected with the oil and gas sector, but said the relevant activities had been discontinued following sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Visa Dispute Puts Wadim Rosenstein and FIDE’s Election Procedures Under Scrutiny
With the September 26 vote approaching, the question is no longer limited to the programs offered by the three presidential candidates. FIDE also has to determine whether the conditions surrounding the General Assembly allow every eligible federation to exercise its voting rights.
For Wadim Rosenstein, the visa controversy has focused additional attention on his position on how the election should proceed. He argues that the established process should not be disrupted and that organizational problems should be fixed without relocating the Congress. FIDE’s Council has taken a different procedural approach, stating that relocation remains an option if participation and voting rights cannot be guaranteed.
The two positions are documented publicly. What has not been established is that Rosenstein was involved in individual visa decisions or that the visa problems were deliberately engineered to influence the election.
Whether the remaining visa cases are resolved before the General Assembly may determine whether the controversy remains a logistical dispute or develops into one of the central procedural questions surrounding the 2026 FIDE presidential election involving Wadim Rosenstein.