Given that he removed himself from the World Chess Championship, the thought that he needs a pretext to pull out of lesser competitions is ludicrous.
Both parties could have handled this much better.
It's pretty black and white.
4.10.1.3. No players with t-shirts, jeans, shorts,
sneakers, baseball caps or inappropriate dress are allowed
in the playing area. Any requests to wear national or
traditional dress shall be approved by FIDE Supervisor.
Wish I had found that section earlier, but I'm less familiar with the chess regulations so it took me a bit to assemble all of the essential parts.
Well, you are the one who posted the quote, which I used as the basis for my comment. I thought I had read it twice over, and saw no reference to jeans, hence my question. Not statement, question. I did not make anything up.
Did you by any chance add the relevant section of the rules to your comment after I asked a question? The proper thing to do would have been to quote the relevant portion of the rules, instead of adding that later.
So, no. Apologies not accepted. Sorry.
When you're the third party and they trusted your quoting skills, that criticism is pretty weak.