Mind games: How football stars are fuelling chess boom

London—When Erling Haaland isn’t tormenting Premier League defences, he is often hunched over a chessboard plotting his next move. The Manchester City striker is one of a growing cohort of elite footballers whose passion for the 64-square game is driving an unprecedented surge in chess participation among younger fans.

Haaland’s fascination runs so deep that he has become an investor in the new Total World Chess Championship Tour, a four-tournament annual series backed by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) and carrying a minimum prize pool of £2 million per season. The tour will crown a single champion across three disciplines—fast classic, rapid and blitz—in different cities each year.

He is far from alone in the dressing-room diaspora that now doubles as a chessboard collective. Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah, who calls himself “addicted” to blitz chess, plays daily under an anonymous online handle. England captain Harry Kane, Real Madrid defender Trent Alexander-Arnold, Newcastle winger Anthony Gordon, Arsenal skipper Martin Odegaard and Crystal Palace midfielder Eberechi Eze—all are avid competitors. Eze underlined his credentials by winning an amateur tournament in 2025.

The crossover is not lost on five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, a lifelong football fan who routinely exchanges moves—and occasionally banter—with his footballing counterparts. Alexander-Arnold once stepped up to face Carlsen in a hyper-rapid showdown that ended in a 17-move, five-minute defeat, an experience the defender later described as “humbling but addictive.”

AC Milan’s Christian Pulisic carries the queen piece permanently on his arm in memory of the grandfather who taught him the game, while France World Cup winner Antoine Griezmann and Real Madrid full-back Dani Carvajal also count themselves as aficionados.

“Chess is an incredible game. It sharpens your mind, and there are clear similarities to football,” Haaland told FIDE. “You have to think quickly, trust your instincts, and think several moves ahead. Strategy and planning are everything.”

The sentiment is echoed in the technical area. In the book Pep Confidential, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola observes: “You have no idea how similar the two things are.” Carlsen agrees: “In chess and football, the important thing is to control the middle. If you control the middle, you control the pitch or the board.”

Technology has accelerated the boom. Online play spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic, and FIDE estimates at least 1.5 billion people now have a chess app on their phone. Streaming platforms and the Netflix hit The Queen’s Gambit have further normalised a pastime once stereotyped as strictly scholastic.

For players, chess offers a different kind of escape. “I use chess to switch off,” Kane said. “It’s such a mental game. You have to focus on every moment.”

Whether the satisfaction of a checkmate can ever rival a last-minute winner remains debatable, but the gridiron of 64 squares has clearly become the preferred playground for football’s biggest names when the final whistle blows.

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