Ukrainian draughts champion disqualified for wearing vyshyvanka

The Board of the International Draughts Federation (IDF) for a second time has made a decision to disqualify Ukrainian world champion Yuriy Anikeev for 3 years, as reported by the “Champion” news agency.

As reported in the November 2016, Russians have disqualified former Ukrainian draughts world champion.

Then there was information that Anikeev was disqualified and was denied to attend the European championship. Champion was denied for supposedly creating controversy in the press, where he reflected on the ways of development of draughts-64.

But now, the “Express” publication claims that the IDF statement says the following:

“We have examined the multiple cases of violation of the ethical code of the IDF (paragraphs 2.2.4 and 2.2.8) by the international grandmaster Yuriy Anikeev (Ukraine) after his removal from the European Draughts-64 Championship in 2016. According to the ethical code of the IDF (paragraph 3.7.), the IDF Board decided to temporary suspend Yuriy Anikeev from all competitions, organized by the IDF, for 3 years until December 15, 2019”.

Anatoliy Yatsenko, the President of the Ukrainian Draughts Federation, told the above-mentioned publication what actually happened to Ukrainian champion.

“It is all illegal. All these accusations are fabricated. Not a single fact of his guilt was proved. Not a single! I, as the President of the Ukrainian Draughts Federation (UDF), appealed to the International Draughts Federation with a request to bring the facts of his violations. I said, if they prove that Yuriy is indeed guilty I will sign his disqualification. But not a single fact was provided. There are only general quotes, which are not explaining anything”, – he said.

According to Yatsenko, Anikeev is accused of inappropriate polemics in the mass media outlets, of pretentious thoughts about the development of draughts, of statements about Putin.

“I asked to present the facts, name the mass media outlets, in which he made these statements, to show his quotes. But there is nothing. Nothing! And the biggest absurd is that he is accused of coming to the awards ceremony in the vyshyvanka”, – he said.

“But if an African athlete comes to the awards ceremony in his native costume he is applauded by everyone in the Hall. And this is welcomed. But, as it turns out, vyshyvanka is a violation of the rules”, – added angrily the Head of the UDF.

Yatsenko explained such attitude from the International Draughts Federation towards Anikeev by the fact that the President of IDF is a Russian.

“It is as if they cut off our head. Yuriy is a former world champion. He is one of the best grandmasters in the world and he is the leader of our team. Russia just couldn’t accept the fact that they are investing huge sums of money in the development of draughts and Ukrainians end up being the best while performing only on enthusiasm. And they struck from behind. First, they removed the leader of our women’s team and now men’s”, – said Yatsenko.

When he was asked what happened with the women’s team, he answered that Ukrainian Darya Tkachenko was bought out for an apartment in Russia.

“Now she is a Russian. They wanted to take out Yuriy the same way. He was offered a citizenship, apartment, but he refused. Yuriy said that he is a patriot of Ukraine and won’t leave. Therefore, they came up with another way to get rid of a competitor. Three years of disqualification is basically a death for a career. It’s not like it is three months”, – concluded Yatsenko.

As a reminder, Tkachenko, a world champion in draughts, received Russian citizenship on September 1, 2016.

Reference. Yuriy Anikeev (born June 11, 1983) is a World Championship winner (2004), silver medalist (2008), bronze medalist (2002) in draughts-64 (Brazilian version), bronze medalist (2002) silver medalist (2004) in the World Draughts-64 Championship (Brazilian version) in the format of the blitz.

Also, he is owner of European Champion title (2005) and bronze medalist (2008) in the International draughts in the format of the blitz, winner of the 2016 Draughts World Championship (rapid 100).