Participants from at least five Asian countries have not received visas for the Chess Olympiad
The visa issues for the Chess Olympiad 2024 in Budapest continue to trouble multiple federations. In the late Monday situation update the list of countries with visa denials for Hungary was primarily made of African nations – Algeria, Eswatini, Lesotho, Gambia, CAR, Tunisia, and Egypt.
Right after our publication multiple emails from delegates, players, and officials were received by Chessdom and added at least five countries from Asia to the list. Some of the sources decided to remain anonymous due to their positions in FIDE. Others decided to speak openly.
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The Iranian GM Amirreza Pourramezanali stated, “I am Afghanistan’s captain in the Chess Olympiad 2024, I have Schengen visa but all the players of Afghanistan also don’t have visa yet.” The situation of Afghanistan was clarified by board 4 of their team Sepehr Sakhawaty, “As Afghanistan team we have attended to Embassy of Hungary in another country, as there is no Hungary embassy working in Afghanistan. We have been in Iran and have been going to the embassy since 7th August. Our whole team visas got rejected this September 5th.” Sepehr Sakhawaty continued, “After that we requested an appeal from the embassy on September 7th which is still not clear to this day even though there is only ONE day left to the start of the event! We have been in another country for more that 40 days and accepted all the expenses only to have our visa for participating in the Olympiad and we were so motivated and wanted to repeat achieving the Gold medal in our category as we did in 2018, but now we even don’t know if we can go and play the Olympiad or not! I really have no idea why are sports and athletes becoming a victim of their geographic place and identity. And I still have no idea why a federation that can’t afford the participation and attendance of all invited countries gets the permission to organize such a high profile event which is every chess player’s dream to participate in! And if they don’t care about our situation I don’t understand what FIDE’s “GENS UNA SUMUS” stands for!”
Besides the gold category medalists from 2018 Afghanistan, the countries in Asia that are confirmed to have visa problems for their players and/or arbiters are Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Amjed Abbas informed, “Iraqi men’s and women’s chess teams have still not received their visas for participation in the Chess Olympiad” With this statement and at least 11 countries with visa issues, the Olympiad participation record is in danger