Magnus Carlsen’s infamous jeans which sparked his standoff against chess’ global governing body, FIDE, were sold for Rs 31 lakh ($36,100) after getting 94 bids on eBay. The World No 1 had put up the size-32 regular-fit Corneliani jeans for auction with the proceeds going to Big Brothers Big Sisters charity. An anonymous bidder bought the apparel.
The World’s top-ranked grandmaster had quit the FIDE World Rapid Championship mid-way in December after he was fined for wearing the jeans for games. Carlsen had said he would change his jeans for the next day’s play, but the chief arbiter had asked him to change it the same day. This had led to Carlsen quitting the event mid-way before he was coaxed back into playing at the FIDE World Blitz Championship.
Carlsen had listed the jeans on the site as “Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen’s #JeansGate Jeans”. The actual price of the jeans is between $300 and $500.
When putting his jeans up for auction, Carlsen had posted on X: “The forbidden jeans – can now be yours. I am auctioning my jeans. A sentence I never thought I would write. But here we are. All proceeds go to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.”
When Magnus took on FIDE
Explaining his decision to quit the event rather than play on, Carlsen had said at the time in an interview with Norwegian broadcasting channel NRK: “I am pretty tired of FIDE, so I want no more of this. I don’t want anything to do with them. I am sorry to everyone at home, maybe it’s a stupid principle, but I don’t think it’s any fun.”
“At that point it became a bit of a matter of principle for me,” Carlsen later explained. “Honestly, my patience with them was not very big to begin with. And it’s okay. They can enforce their rules. That’s fine by me. And my response is that fine, then I’m out. Like, f** you. I don’t think anything more has to be said.”
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