London withdraws its 2012 World Championship bid

by ChessBase
2/3/2011 – It was going to be a World Championship to remember: in the same location as the magnificent Chess Classics, for a prize fund of around two million Euros, tax prepaid. The potential organisers paid a € 50,000 deposit and gave FIDE until January 29th to accept or reject. Neither happened and today the sponsor formally withdrew his offer. Bad news.
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3rd February 2011

PRESS RELEASE

Re: FIDE World Chess Championship London 2012

Chess Promotions Ltd has been in discussions with FIDE since February 2010 regarding the staging of the WCC in London. A € 50,000 deposit was paid to FIDE to secure an option on the WCC 2012 match as negotiations commenced and finance was sought.

Having secured the necessary funds, on July 21st 2010, CPL sent FIDE a formal offer and a detailed commercial contract to stage the next WCC match in London with financial terms similar to the 2010 WCC match at Sofia.

Unfortunately agreement could not be reached in the autumn. Following more discussions in London in January, CPL asked FIDE to accept the offer by Saturday 29th January 2011. No such acceptance was forthcoming. Therefore, with regret, CPL has withdrawn its offer in time for the next Executive Board meeting which starts today in Turkey in order to give the EB clarity and the opportunity to consider alternatives. The timeline to stage a WCC match before the Olympic Games in May 2012 is now too short.

CPL will continue to stage top class events in London. Dates for the 3rd London Chess Classic will be announced shortly. We have registered our interest with FIDE in staging events such as the World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship in London and will continue to work on bringing commercial sponsorship to chess in order to benefit our associated charity Chess in Schools and Communities.

Malcolm Pein
CEO Chess Promotions Ltd.

We contacted World Champion Viswanathan Anand, who is directly affected by this turn of events. Anand was in transit from Europe to India and gave us the following brief statement:

"London has been a probable venue for the World Championships since 2009 and the sponsors had shown keen interest in staging the event. I have not been involved in the negotiations so I can't comment on what has transpired. But FIDE is having its presidential board meeting and at the end we hope we will have some clarity on the issue. The World Championships in 2012 would be one of the most closely contested matches, personally for me it would be a very big challenge."

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