 On 30 September 2016, the BCF filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against its suspension.The court dismissed the appeal at a hearing in Lausanne on 28 April 2017 following an exchange of written submissions from both sides.In the absence of resolution, Bulgaria was not allowed to send teams to the Batumi Chess Olympiad because its federation was not recognised by FIDE, which left former FIDE World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov and former Women's World Chess Champion Antoaneta Stefanova out of the tournament.