Top Israeli chess players won’t be able to compete in a major tournament for three years after the World Chess Federation agreed to host the event in Saudi Arabia in return for a $1.5 million fee.

Saudi Arabia is one of a number of Arab or Muslim countries that normally do not allow entry to Israelis.

In fact, the move by the World Chess Federation, also known by its French initials FIDE, sparked fury around the world with 150 players expected to boycott the event in Riyadh next month. Many non-Israelis are staying away to protest the Saudis’ human rights record or customs like a requirement that women wear a head scarf or similar garb.

As one of the strongest chess nations, with three players in the top 50, Israel has the most to lose from the decision, which also means entrants from Qatar and Iran, bitter rivals of the Saudis, won’t be able to go.

This week the Association of Chess Professionals condemned the decision to stage the World Rapid and Blitz Championships, or “speed chess,” in Saudi Arabia.

“This kind of event cannot and should not take place in a country that does not guarantee an entry to the representatives all federations, and has gender and religion discriminatory laws,” the association said in a statement.

The association’s president, Emil Sutovsky, an Israeli grandmaster, blamed a lack of transparency at the top of the world federation, where the decision to award Saudi Arabia the tournament was made by a handful of people.

He noted that the world federation stood to gain four times the normal annual fee from Saudi Arabia, which the federation agreed could host the event for three years. This is because organizers in Riyadh have increased the prize money for the tournament to $2 million, of which the world federation gets a quarter, or $500,000 a year.

The world federation did not immediately respond to emails from Haaretz asking for comment.

A head scarf in Iran

The last time Israeli chess players were locked out of the tournament was in 2004, when the event was hosted in Libya.

“It’s never been held in a country with such a controversial reputation,” Sutovsky told Haaretz. “When it was held in Libya there were six or seven American grandmasters who joined us by staying away. Now there’s an American player who says he won’t go to a country with such a massive human rights problem.”

Earlier this year many players stayed away when the Women’s World Chess Championship was held in Iran.

“Many players didn’t want to go, the women were obliged to wear a head scarf, or some version of the hijab. Now the double world champion from Ukraine says she is tired of the women segregation policy,” Sutovsky added.

“In Iran she had to play with a head scarf on all the time, and it was annoying. She didn’t feel comfortable. She can’t go out in the street because she needs a male guardian. Her position is that to dress properly and so on, not everybody is ready to sacrifice all that for the extra prize money.”

The decision means that the Qatari former world champion is not expected to compete either because of the Saudi-led boycott of her country. Zhu Chen is Chinese-born but married to a Qatari.

Ukrainian Anna Muzychuk is staying away, and the American super grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura has pulled out, as has the British champion, Jovanka Houska.

Nakamura wrote on Twitter last Thursday: “To organize a chess tournament in a country where basic human rights aren’t valued is horrible. Chess is a game where all different sorts of people can come together, not a game in which people are divided because of their religion or country of origin.”

Women defend their principles

Muzychuk said in a Facebook post on Saturday that despite “the record prize fund, I am not going to play in Riyadh.” Referring to a robe-like garment worn by Muslim women, she said she wouldn’t play there even though this meant “losing two world champion titles. To risk your life, to wear abaya all the time?? Everything has its limits and headscarves in Iran was more than enough.”

Houska said she wouldn’t feel comfortable having to go everywhere with a male companion. “It goes against my principles and I am sure my rebellious side would get me into trouble!” she said on the website chess.com.

Sutovsky, meanwhile, predicted that only half the normal number competitors – 100 men and 50 women – would end up competing.

In its statement, the Association of Chess Professionals added: “Chess world deserves better, and we feel that selling all the principles and violating written and moral rules, as FIDE constantly does recently, seriously harms the image of our game and will have negative long-term consequences.”

The former president of the European Chess Union, Silvio Danailov, accused the world federation of “total moral degradation.” As he put it on Twitter, “After Iran & Saudi Arabia what’s next, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?”