 On 27 March 2017, FIDE's official website announced that Ilyumzhinov had allegedly resigned from his presidency on a meeting of FIDE Presidential Board that took place in Athens.Later he went on to publicly deny his resignation and told the Russian news agency TASS that FIDE officials wanted to oust him and that it was "the hand of the Americans".FIDE Executive Director Nigel Freeman the next day responded to Ilyumzhinov's statements that the information was untrue by saying that he actually threatened to resign and mentioned three times that he resigned at the end of the meeting.