DUBAI — Iran’s top rated chess champion has decided not to play for his country, Iranian news agencies reported on Tuesday, in an apparent reaction to Tehran’s informal ban on competing against Israeli players. Alireza Firouzja, the world’s second-highest rated junior player, would be the second Iranian sports figure in recent months to try to renounce his citizenship over pressures on Iranian athletes to forego matches with Israeli competitors. “Firouzja has made his decision and has told us that he wants to change his nationality,” the president of Iran’s Chess Federation, Mehrdad Pahlavanzadeh, told the semi-official news agency Tasnim. “Firouzja is currently living in France … and may want to play under the French or U.S. flag,” Pahlavanzadeh told the news agency ISNA. In April, Iranian media reported that Firouzja had refused to play against an Israeli player in a tournament in Germany.

Source: National Post December 24, 2019 15:22 UTC