Communique of the 74th FIDE Congress, Kallithea, Halkidiki, Greece
At the 74th FIDE Congress in Kallithea, Greece, FIDE took a number of important
decisions and made some interesting announcements. For the very impatient (and
those with attention deficiency syndrome) we bring you a summary in two sentences:
The Ponomariov-Kasparov match is cancelled (Pono to blame), nothing definite
about the next FIDE world championship, except that it can be cut into smaller
pieces. Georgia wants to stage the women's world championship in 2004, the
next Olympiad will be in Majorca in October next year, while FIDE will cut
costs by moving its offices from Switzerland to Greece.
Here are the main points in greater detail:
-
The Executive Board endorsed the decision of President Ilyumzhinov to cancel
the Ponomariov-Kasparov 2003 World Chess Championship Match and to organize
in its place the World Championship (Knock Out) tournament. They criticised
Ponomariov for dictating "unacceptable terms" and praised Kasparov
for his "cooperative attitude".
-
The Board empowered the FIDE President to decide on the final details of
the format of the next FIDE world championship, allowing him to hold it
as one gigantic 124-player event or to split it into two, three or four
groups, making it possible to spread the costs of hosting the event.
[Comment: We hear that Azerbaijan and Bulgaria are
showing interest in staging parts of the event; and that President Ilyumzhinov
and deputy president George Makropoulos are attempting to stage the match
between the winner of the next FIDE world championship and Garry Kasparov
during the Olympic Games in Athens]
-
The Georgian Chess Federation has offered to organize the Women’s
World Chess Championship in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the period May-June 2004
with a prize fund of $450,000.
-
FIDE will be moving its Secretariat from Lausanne to Athens in order to
reduce the running costs.
-
The 36th Chess Olympiad will be held on the island of Majorca (Spain) from
October 21 to 31, 2004.
-
The 37th Chess Olympiad will be held in the Italian city of Turin from
May 20 to June 4, 2006.
-
Armenia, Germany, Sweden and Argentina have expressed interest to host
the 2008 Olympiad.
-
The World Youth Championship 2004 will take place in Crete, Greece, while
the same event for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 have been awarded to
Belfort, France; India, Antalya-Izmir, Turkey and Vietnam respectively.
-
The World Juniors and Girls 2004 are in early September in Calcutta, India;
the World Juniors and Girls 2005 and 2007 events were awarded to the Turkish
and Armenian Chess Federations.
-
The World Rapid Chess Championship 2005 will be held in Cap d’Agde,
France, the World Youth Team Championship 2005 was awarded to the United
States Chess Federation, and the Inaugural World Major Open Championship
to be held in Scarborough, England.
-
FIDE approved the new World Youth Intercontinental Championship for the
winners of each category in continental championships.
- FIDE declared the years 2004 and 2005 as the year of Tigran Petrossian
and the year of Chess in Schools respectively.
