Kramnik on the world chess situation

Moscow, September 8, 2003

World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik official announcement

Keeping in mind the current situation in the chess world I consider it important to state my position.

At the present time I am engaged with the preparation for the Classical World Chess Championship match with the official challenger Peter Leko. We came to an agreement concerning all conditions and regulations for our match. Now we are at the final stage of negotiations with the potential sponsor. An official announcement will follow after signing the agreements.

Based on my rights from the contract with Einstein Group PLC I sent a termination document to the company in the beginning of August 2003. The reason for this was the company’s failure to fulfill the main contract obligation – organization of the Classical World Chess Championship match by June 30, 2003. At the moment I do not have any contractual relations either with the Einstein Group or with FIDE. I also did not authorize these organizations to hold negotiations on my behalf. All the announcements concerning my match with Peter Leko in Buenos Aires are far from reality.

I regret that the match between Ruslan Ponomariov (FIDE World Champion) and Gary Kasparov (FIDE challenger), will not take place. All this leads to a halt of the chess world reunion that was initiated by the Prague unity agreement.

I ask all the people who are in charge of the situation to find a reasonable solution and to put maximum effort in order to resolve the crisis.

Let the players play!

Vladimir Kramnik