Press release
World Title Match At Chennai In 2012
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has accepted to stage the Anand versus
Gelfand World Chess title match either in April or in May of 2012. The budget
for the event which is Rs. 20 Crore will be sponsored by the Tamil Nadu Government.
This followed a meeting FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had with the Tamil
Nadu Chief Minister at Chennai this morning.
At a subsequent meet-the-press, held at the Russian Cultural Centre in Chennai
on July 13, 2011, J.C.D. Prabhakar, President of the AICF announced the Chennai
bid for the world title match which is likely to go through on July 31, 2011.
When this event happens, this will become the biggest chess event ever in India
in terms of importance as well as prize money. Two World Championship semi-finals
were held at Sanghinagar (near Hyderabad) in February 1995 and the two semi-finals
were held in Delhi in December 2000. The finals has never taken place in Indian
soil.
Viswanathan Anand is a four-time world champion and would be looking forward
to defend and keep his title for a fifth time next summer.
In a Tamil Nadu Government Press Release No.444 dated July 13, 2011, the Chief
Minister J. Jayalalitha had sanctioned the amount for this title match which
has not been staged in India before.

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in conversation with Chief Minister J.
Jayalalitha. To his right is D.V. Sundar, Vice President of FIDE and to his
left is J.C.D. Prabhakar, President, AICF.