The defending champion said he quit as a “matter of principle” after being told to change his jeans.
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20241229085023/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98lkrdkz70o
SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2Fc98lkrdkz70o
Relevant links:
Emphasis on the third link, on what’s not allowed: sneakers, jeans, t-shirts. Under the claim that it’s “to maintain the high standards of the FIDE World Rapid & Blitz Championships”… yeah, nah, non sequitur.
And more importantly it shows that the dress code in question is NOT about decency, or preventing cheating, or not distracting other players; it’s all about “if you dress casually we’re going to be assumptive trash and assume that you don’t take the competition seriously.” No wonders Carlsen walked away from it.
The NBA requires players to suit up when arriving at a game. Some MLB teams require pretty strict dress codes (famously the Yankees and facial hair).
Organized sports can be weird to say the least.
Note: since I don’t watch basketball or baseball, I had to dig for further info. As such take what I say with a grain of salt.
…they sound equally as silly and arbitrary as FIDE’s dress code. In special, apparently the NBA dress code (when arriving at a game, as you said; inside the game it’s another can of worms) was created to target hip hop clothing, associating it with crime; this is clearly prejudice.
Mattingly I thought I told you to shave those sideburns