GM Illya Smirin lands in trouble for sexist remarks, fired for saying ‘Chess is not for women’

A huge controversy broke out in the opening event of the FIDE Women’s Grand Prix 2022-23 on Tuesday (September 27). GM Ilya Smirin’s sexist remarks, claiming that chess is not for women, during the live broadcast went viral in no time. As a result, the announcer landed in trouble and has been fired with immediate effect by the FIDE.

The embarassing comments were made during the live broadcast of the ninth round of the event in Astana. Smirin, a Belarusian-born Israeli grandmaster, was on debut as an English-language commentator with WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni of Luxemburg. Nonetheless, his debut turned out to be a nightmare as the chess player shockingly claimed that “Chess is not for women”. Further, he continued saying, “Why women can play against men and men cannot play against women” and “why a woman would want to get a men’s GM title.”

A viewer asked if it was possible for one of the participants (WGM Zhu Jiner) to make a GM norm in this event solely for women. To this, Smirin asked, “She’s a Woman Grandmaster or what? Why does she want to be like men grandmaster in this case?” In addition, the Israeli chess player questioned, “It’s possible basically to make a men norm in a woman tournament?”

It is to be noted that scoring a grandmaster norm has no relation with the gender. It can be attained by a certain level of performance against a strong opposition, that must include a plethora of other grandmasters (irrespective of the gender).

GM Illya Smirin pays a heavy price

While Steil-Antoni countered saying, “Of course, why not?” Smirin replied, “I don’t know. For instance, why women can play with men and men cannot play with women? Today it would be like everyone for parity!”

After laughing it off, Smirin tried to move past his remarks and said, “I didn’t say it openly, sorry. Private conversation.” The damager, however, was done by then.

American GM and popular YouTube streamer Hikaru Nakamura lashed out at Smirin for his insensitive remarks. In a Youtube video, he said, “What the hell? It’s brutal. It must be really uncomfortable for Fiona to handle it there. It is reasonably rough.”

While FIDE was slow to react, it shared a statement on the following day resulting in the ouster of GM Illya Smirin. Here’s the official statement:

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The FIDE statement read: ” During yesterday’s Women’s Grand Prix live broadcast, one of the announcers expressed some very embarrassing comments. Although we have great respect for Grandmaster Ilya Smirin as a chess player, the views he expressed on air are completely unacceptable, and offensive, and do not represent any of the values that FIDE stands for. Therefore, we unreservedly apologise to all those who were offended. Additionally, GM Smirin will not continue as a FIDE commentator with immediate effect.”