Carlsen had held the title since 2013 and won the Championship five times, including in Dubai last year when he beat Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi.

But Carlsen had admitted before his match with Nepomniachtchi, he did not know if he would defend his title.

He claimed that the only opponent who could tempt him to take part in the Championship was Iranian French grand master Alireza Firouzja.

But the 19-year-old failed to qualify from the Candidates Tournament in Madrid and, following Carlsen’s withdrawal, Chinese world number two Ding Liren’s is now set to take on Nepomniachtchi at a venue on dates yet to be announced.

Nepomniachtchi won the tournament undefeated with a round to spare and the highest score in any Candidates tournament since the modern format was introduced in 2013.

Ding finished second having only been invited to the tournament after Russia's Sergey Karjakin was disqualified for breaching the the International Chess Federation (FIDE) Code of Ethics after publicly expressing approval for Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

Carlsen, ranked number one in the FIDE world rankings since July 2011, is the first player since Bobby Fischer in 1975 to not defend his title on the board after the American complained about the format.

"Ultimately the conclusion stands, one that I’m pretty comfortable with, one that I’ve thought a lot about for a long time now, I would say more than a year, probably a year-and-a-half almost, since long before the last match," Carlsen told Chess24 on World Chess Day.

"I’ve spoken to people in my team, I’ve spoken to FIDE, I spoke to Ian as well.

"The conclusion is, yeah, it’s very simple, that I am not motivated to play another match.

"I simply feel that I don’t have a lot to gain.

"I don’t particularly like it, and although I’m sure a match would be interesting for historical reasons and all of that, I don’t have any inclination to play, and I will simply not play the match."

Carlsen held talks with FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich and general director Emil Sutovsky in Madrid on the final weekend of the Candidates Tournament.

"I did agree to meet with Dvorkovich and Sutovsky from FIDE to talk a little bit," Carlsen told Chess24.

"I did not have any demands or suggestions for that meeting.

"They did have a couple of suggestions, but the gist of it was that I was there to tell them that I would not defend my title in the next World Championship match, and we had a small discussion.

"They had some suggestions, some of them I liked, some of them I did not."