Imagine this: instead of D Gukesh and R Praggnanandhaa representing India at the 2026 Chess Olympiad, women’s team coach GM Swayams Mishra and AICF president Nitin Narang are forced to step in and play for the country. It sounds like a strange joke, but for the Namibian men’s team, it is a harsh reality.

Two of Namibia’s players had their visas rejected upon arrival in Tashkent, leaving the team with just three players out of five.

In a desperate bid to at least participate in the tournament they had travelled so far to play, Namibia registered their women’s team coach, Leonhard Mueller, and their national chess federation president, Charles Eichab, in the men’s team.

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For Namibia, the experience in Uzbekistan for the 46th Chess Olympiad has been a nightmare as two members of their men’s team, Goodwill Khoa and Otto Nakapunda, were denied visas in Tashkent. Khoa was sent back to Istanbul, where he was stranded without his passport.

Indian Grandmaster Priyadharshan Kannappan, who is training the Namibian men’s team and serves as their coach and captain, provided a detailed account of what unfolded. Priyadharshan, who had been working with the team virtually for the past few months, travelled to Samarkand via Tashkent from New Delhi on an Indian passport and had no trouble clearing immigration. After landing in Tashkent at 9 AM on Tuesday, he reached Samarkand by 4 PM the same day.

2 player visa got rejected of Namibia Open team in Tashkent arrival with no solid reason on visa on arrival. As the captain of the team this is frustrating as we have only 3 players now.@FIDE_chess

Help us out. #ChessOlympiad@ChessbaseIndia @chesscom

— Priyadharshan Kannappan (@PriyadharshanK) September 15, 2026

By that time, the Namibian contingent, which included 10 players across men and women events, women’s team coach Mueller, and head of delegation Eichab, had landed in Tashkent.

Unlike Priyadharshan, who had applied for an e-visa months in advance, the Namibian chess contingent applied for a visa on arrival at Islam Karimov Tashkent International Airport. That is where the trouble began. The two players were denied entry to the country without any concrete reasons.

“All the players except two from the open team got their visas cleared, and they just didn’t give any clear reasoning why those two players are not getting their visa. They just said their names are not on the list,” Priyadharshan told .

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Race against time

While the rest of the Namibian team was figuring out what to do, Priyadharshan was scrambling in Samarkand, racing against time to get his team’s registration done.

“The pairings were scheduled to be published at around 10 PM Uzbek time, so we were racing against time. From 5 PM we were waiting, and around 7 PM I got an update that most likely one of the players’ visas was going to be rejected and the other was a 50-50 case. It was only at 8:50 PM that I got an update on WhatsApp that both players’ visas were rejected, so we were left with only three players out of the five,” he said.

“Then I kept messaging the chief arbiter, the TAP (Technical Advisory Panel), through multiple channels via email, WhatsApp, and so on,” added Priyadharshan.

The players who cleared the visas had to catch a train at 9 PM, the last one leaving from Tashkent to Samarkand. The rest of the team had to leave Nakapunda and Khoa at the airport and move ahead so they could reach the venue on time. The team reached Samarkand only at 5 AM on Wednesday, with no contact from the two players stranded at the airport.

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With no options left, Priyadharshan registered Mueller and Eichab in the men’s team. Mueller is in action against Romania’s Filip Magold in Namibia’s opening-round match.

Later, Priyadharshan was informed that Khoa had been sent back to Istanbul with his passport confiscated by Tashkent airport authorities. The player was also fined 800 Euros and had to rebook his flight only after paying 480 Euros.

This has been the second major lapse, either from the local organising committee in Uzbekistan or FIDE, after the Indian team also had to wait for over six hours to get their hotel rooms on Tuesday.