Wait, what? Magnus Carlsen accused by Hans Niemann of paying GM Aryan Tari to shout ‘Cheat Hans’

The Magnus Carlsen-Hens Neimann controversy isn't unknown. Carlsen, the five-time world chess champion, was sued for $100mn by fellow chess playerNiemann after the former had withdrawn fromSinquefield Cup last September and hinted at Neimann being a cheat. After this, Carlsen even made it clear that he won't play against Neimann; with the latter filing a lawsuit against the veteran player, Chess.com and others (of libel, slander and unlawful boycott and tortious interference of Niemann’s business).

Now, the Carlsen vs Neimann legal saga has got murkier with the latter accusing Carlsen of paying another grandmaster AryanTari to shout “Ukse Hans” meaning“Cheater Hans” during theclosing ceremony of the European Club Cup on October 9, 2022.

The latest submission to the district court of Missouri states, "To ensure that he inflicted the maximum possible damage to Niemann and his career, Carlsen, in the days and weeks that followed the Sinquefield Cup, deployed a more covert defamatory campaign against Niemann, designed to bolster Carlsen’s more high-profile defamatory accusations within the chess community."

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"In Carlsen’s malicious defamatory campaign against Niemann, Carlsen went as far as paying Aryan Tari €300 to scream ‘Ukse [sic] Hans’, Norwegian for ‘Cheater Hans’, from the stands at the closing ceremony of the European Club Cup on October 9, 2022, which was attended by many of the world’s most prominent chess players and heard by many of its fans."

It further adds, "Shortly thereafter, the entire Norwegian chess team, including Carlsen, were observed publicly chanting ‘Ukse [sic] Hans’ in bars and the streets of the Austrian town where the European Club Cup was held. Any reasonable listener of these statements would interpret them as reiterating Carlsen’s false accusation that Niemann cheated when he defeated Carlsen at the Sinquefield Cup."

Thus, the Carlsen-Neimann controversy has darkened further with the latest accusation from the 19-year-old. Earlier, Carlsen and Chess.com had accused him of cheating to which the youngster had admitted that he cheated twice, when he was 12 and 16, but never after that.

It will be interesting to see how Chess.com and Carlsen respond to the latest allegations from Neimann.