Breaking: Alireza Firouzja will skip the World Cup 2025

After announcing the wild card positions, FIDE has published a massive update of the participants list for the World Cup 2025. The field is headed by the Indian top guns World Champion Gukesh D, Praggnanandhaa, and Arjun Erigaisi, who will have as their main competitors Wesley So, Anish Giri, Wei Yi, Vincent Keymer, Nodirbek Abdusattorov, Levon Aronian, etc (see the full list here)

While no one is surprised about Magnus Carlsen being out of the participants list, the absence of Alireza Firouzja raises eyebrows. In case the list is confirmed as it is, this will mean Alireza Firouzja will not have a chance to qualify for Candidates Chess 2026 and thus will not have a shot at the World Chess Championship title in 2026.

Europe Echecs comments, “Logically, Alireza Firouzja should have been part of this list. Eighth in the world with an Elo of 2754, he was qualified for this event, the last chance for him to participate for the third time in a row in the Tournament of Candidates. How to explain this absence? The Frenchman had shown an excellent level of play at the Grand Swiss, and could hope to finish on the podium of this World Cup. We have no evidence at the moment to understand this very surprising decision…”

Update: FIDE released an update to the participants list. However, only one correction was made: Hans Niemann appeared on the place of Dominguez, after initially Niemann was missing from the list. We will keep you posted as more updates are published.

Developing story, stay tuned for updates

More: Abhimanyu Mishra and Andy Woodward receive wild cards for the World Chess Cup 2025 / Faustino Oro may be with a GM norm at the World Cup / Divya Deshmukh gets the wild card for the FIDE World Cup 2025