Subgroups of free idempotent generated semigroups need not be free

We study the maximal subgroups of free idempotent generated semigroups on a biordered set by topological methods. These subgroups are realized as the fundamental groups of a number of 2-complexes naturally associated to the biorder structure of the set of idempotents. We use this to construct the first example of a free idempotent generated semigroup containing a non-free subgroup.