Sophian A Yusuf, director of the National Scholastic Chess Championship 2017, also denied having ever met the girl, saying he only saw her from images posted on social media.

“I am being slandered. At all material times, I never said the word ‘seductive’ during the whole tournament. I have never seen the player,” The Malay Mail Online quoted him telling a press conference today.

“I have no knowledge of how she was dressed during the whole tournament until someone posted it on social media,” Sophian said, adding that he has since lodged reports with the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.

He did so after coming under fire from social media users who demanded his resignation from the Malaysian Chess Foundation.

This followed a report that a 12-year-old participant had been informed by the competition’s chief arbiter that her knee-length dress was “seductive” and violated the tournament’s rules, which among others required players to portray a “dignified appearance”.

Sophian today said he only learned of the incident after the tournament ended on April 16.

He said the girl and her parents had ignored the arbiter’s advice to change her dress, and later withdrew voluntarily from the chess tournament.

“Since the player did not change the dress as she was advised to in Round 1, the arbiter reported the dress to the chief arbiter,” he said, as quoted by MMO.

In a Facebook post last week, the girl’s coach, Kaushal Khandhar, claimed the chief arbiter told the girl and her mother that the tournament director (Sophian) had deemed her dress “seductive” and a “temptation from a certain angle far, far away”.