Neither war nor confrontation
In this interview, which took place in the Grand Hotel in Sofia, Sport Express
chess journalist Yuri Vasiliev speaks with FIDE deputy president Georgios Makropoulos,
who knows every aspect of FIDE's plans for the world championship cycle. A
short time before Makropoulos had met with a number of players who are going
to participate in the world championship in Argentina in September. The interview
appeared on June 1st, 2005 in Sport Express. Here some excerpts:
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On Kasparov's retirement: We are all still in a state
of shock. Chess has lost its greatest hero. But we must try to understand
Kasparov. A new life has begun for him. We are indebted to Kasparov, who
is a great sportsman and artist and has created remarkable works in the
art of chess. They served as lessons and will serve as lessons for generations.
FIDE is indebted to Kasparov because his contribution to popularising the
game is enormous.
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On the players selected for the Argentine world championship:
Ponomariov had an opportunity to play against Kasparov, but he squandered
it. the exclusion of Ivanchuk and Shirov was painful. But we followed the
system introduced by FIDE in 1997. Changing rules would be wrong; it would
create an impression we want to accommodate someone, and throw someone
out.
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What will the winner of San Luis be? The World Champion
– nobody should have any doubts about that. Everything was planned
with the objective of getting the strongest players, whose fighting one
another will produce the new World Champion, acknowledged as such by everyone.
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On the Prague agreement: It was conceived to get Kasparov
back in the official world championship arena, but with his exit the Prague
agreement lost its meaning. Kramnik, too, made it clear that he did not
intend to play against either Kasparov or Kasimdzhanov.
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On Kramnik's proposal that he play the winner of the FIDE championship:
The tournament in Argentina is not a qualifier, it is the World Championship.
Kramnik made a decision not to play in Argentina. We cannot ask our own
World Champion to play against him.
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Can such a match be arranged anyway? It is not possible,
since all players taking part in Argentina have signed an undertaking not
to participate in any championship cycle outside FIDE. Those undertakings
are legally enforceable.
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On the next cycle: There will be continental chess championships,
the World Cup, a "last last chance super tournament" and Candidates
matches. The players who were 3rd and 4th in Argentina will join the eight
qualifiers, and five matches will be played. The five winners will be joined
by the player who was second in Argentina. The six players will play the
quarter-finals. The world champion will join the three winners, i.e. he
or she will join in at the semi-final stage. We have tried to find a compromise
with the leading players. We propose a system which will make all of them
more or less happy.
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On time controls: For the world cup (128-player knockout)
there will be the FIDE 90 minute control. The Candidate matches, the super
tournament and match for the world champion title will have a 7-hour control.
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Prize fund: Only for the stage of continental championships
and the World Cup, FIDE will attract five million dollars in the coming
two years. This money is not from the pocket of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, but
money attracted thanks to our work.
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On the Sofia anti-draw rule: This is a positive development,
and I hope we can implement them at some juncture for the FIDE official
tournaments. But it is a fairly serious task and cannot be considerd earlier
than at the FIDE congress in 2008.
e
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On the next FIDE president to be elected next year:
I don’t see any other candidate for the presidential post than Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov. Kirsan is the only president in FIDE’s history who has
spent a considerable amount of money on chess. No matter what they say
or write about him, everyone understands that he has done a lot for chess..
