In December 2004, FIDE announced that the World Championship is cancelled. The match was to have been held 7-24 January 2005 in Dubai or later in Turkey…On 7 December, FIDE issued a press release titled, ‘FIDE terminates negotiations with candidate Dubai organiser of the Kasimdzhanov – Kasparov match’, which explained, ‘The organiser from Dubai did not supply FIDE with the required financial guarantees within the deadline set by the FIDE President.’
The Kasimdzhanov-Kasparov match is now scheduled to be organised in spring 2005 and FIDE has already entered discussions with other candidate organisers and sponsors. Further information on the progress of these discussions will be officially announced until the end of this year.
Only a few days after the President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov told Interfax on Monday. “Initially the match was expected to be held in the United Arab Emirates at the beginning of January, but the organizers have failed to get everything ready by that time,” he said. “Now a new contest has been announced for the match and Turkey has said it wants to host it. I am flying to Turkey to meet senior government officials and discuss the matter,” Ilyumzhinov said.’
On January 18th after over two and a half frustrating years and four postponed or cancelled matches, Garry Kasparov announces his exit from the 2005 FIDE world championship. “It is time to reclaim my life,” Kasparov said, as he halted negotiations with FIDE over his match with Rustam Kasimdzhanov – after more deadlines had passed. Here is Kasparov’s statement.
Garry Kasparov has informed FIDE and the Turkish Chess Federation today that he is no longer available for the 2005 FIDE World Chess Championship which was tentatively scheduled for April 25th to May 14th in Istanbul, Turkey. We received Kasparov’s statement from his home in Moscow.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Moscow – January 18, 2005
In 2002 I joined with FIDE in Prague to try and unify the world championship. Over the past two and a half years, unification matches have been scheduled four times and each time the deadlines have come and gone while the financial guarantees were ignored.
Four times I have put my life on hold to schedule three months for preparation, play, and recuperation. The loss of earnings is easy to understand, but the hidden damage is psychological. These postponed and cancelled events have been deeply unsettling to me both professionally and personally. Our global chess federation has rarely thought enough to even keep me informed, let alone compensate me financially or even apologize for these repeated frustrations.
I called a halt to negotiations last night, but resentment at my treatment by FIDE has been building for the past three months. My life has been totally disrupted for two and a half years thanks to this on-again, off-again match and I must go on without this constant interference.
Perhaps the last straw was watching the Corus tournament in Wijk aan Zee currently underway in the Netherlands. I was forced to give up my invitation to play in this event when FIDE insisted that the match would take place in Dubai on conflicting dates. It breaks my heart to watch such a great event from the sidelines. It hurts me, and I believe chess is poorly served as well.
Some details might help clarify how I reached this state of exhaustion and disillusionment. In September 2004, FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov publicly announced that he had the funds for my match with Rustam Kasimdzhanov to take place in Dubai in January 2005. It turned out that this was completely untrue.
At a press conference at the Russian Championship in Moscow two months later I told the media that there were no contracts, no financial guarantees, and that FIDE was giving disinformation. A FIDE official present loudly “whispered” that I was lying, a remark that made its way to ChessBase.com and the chess world. Needless to say, it turned out that the lies were solely on the FIDE side of the story and it speaks volumes about the organization that no apology to me was forthcoming and that this official is still working for FIDE.
I was concerned enough about the lack of tangible progress in organizing the match to write an open letter to the FIDE Congress in October 2004. The FIDE Presidential Board refused to read or circulate this letter at the Congress, apparently believing that no news was good news.
At that time the Turkish Chess Federation was ready to take over the championship organization. President Ali Nihat Yazici had considerable momentum and was ready to proceed with procuring sponsorship guarantees. But FIDE insisted on giving Dubai even more time, even though it had been independently verified that supposed sponsor, HH Sh. Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, was not going to fund the event and had never intended to.
Far too late, FIDE appointed the Turkish Chess Federation and work began in early December with deadlines looming. The first deadline passed on December 29th and more have passed since. As of today I have no contract with FIDE signed by either player, I have no financial guarantee, and I know from experience that drafting these documents can take considerable time.
I feel great sympathy for Mr. Nihat Yazici, an honorable man who has worked very hard on behalf of chess and on behalf of this match. I believe he may well have eventually come up with an acceptable form of guarantee, but I cannot wait any longer to reclaim control of my life. I will apologize to Ali and those in the Turkish government and business community assisting him and will do my best to lend a hand to Turkish chess in the future.
It’s not about money or winning the title; it’s about my disillusionment with the process and the others on which it depends. In 2002 I dreamed of a legitimate chance to revive – and reclaim – the real world championship title. That no longer seems to be possible. Even if by some miracle the match is held and I win, I would bear a great deal of responsibility and still have no opportunity to unify the title. FIDE has proven itself incapable of the task while others are unwilling.
As for unification, I cannot see an avenue to contribute further. For those who saw me as an obstacle, I will be one no longer. I am not giving up on chess. I will compete as well and as long as I am able to play my brand of chess. I will continue to serve chess and those who love our game. I have now held the #1 ranking for 20 years and I will defend my position against any opponent. My only retreat is from the battlefield of chess championship politics.
Garry Kasparov Moscow – January 18, 2005
No time for Turkey, on January 20th, the TurkishPress.com released the news: ‘Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov has announced he is withdrawing from a world championship due to be held this year in Turkey because frustration with the World Chess Federation FIDE had led to financial loss and psychological hardship.’
A FIDE Press Release (January 20th) made no attempt to hide its opinion that the World Federation considered Kasparov to be at fault. ‘Garry Kasparov had made it clear several times that he would not sign anything before he receives “acceptable” financial guarantees. […] It has to be clear to everyone that it is impossible to secure such high prize funds from legitimate sponsors, acceptable to FIDE and the IOC, without providing the candidate organizers with the necessary time to complete their efforts, especially when the government of a country is the guarantor for the organization of the match. It is even more difficult to secure these prize funds when the participants demand excessive financial guarantees before commiting themselves in writing.’
It really doesn’t matter any more who is to blame. Any hope of reunifying the FIDE championship title with the Vladimir Kramnik title is now gone. Once again, life goes on, but chess is the big loser.
Ilyumzhinov: reunification with or without Kasparov But on February 16th, Ilymzhinov made it clear at a Moscow press conference: Reunification is still on track, the match in Turkey will go ahead, for an increased prize sum of $1.65 million. I have given Garry Kasparov a deadline until February 26 to agree to the conditions, otherwise another player will replace him.
Now FIDE president is waiting for an answer from the rated world No.1, who withdrew in January from playing the World Chess Championship match against Rustam Kasimdzhanov at the scheduled dates of April 25th to May 14th 2005.”
On February 17, in Sport-Express, Yuri Vassiliev interview the FIDE President
We have not spoken to Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, President of Kalmykia and FIDE for more than half a year. This period of time has seen many chess events and shocking news, the latest being the sad letter from the permanent leader of the world rating, 13th World Champion G. Kasparov. He informed the chess world that he is not going to wait any more when his match with the FIDE World Champion R. Kasimdzhanov will be organized. Many people considered this action of Kasparov as his good bye to the unification process. Then, the Prague process had no real meaning…
What are FIDE and its President going to do in this situation? This is of interest for all of us now. – Mr. Ilyumzhinov, why did the match fail to take place in Dubai? It is hard to believe that such a rich country, as UAE could not find money for this prestigious event.
– Initially, everything was going ok; there has been a letter from Sheikh Mohammed – to take the match under his patronage. Then some force majeur things happened. As you remember, the press conference, where we announced the match, took place last autumn. In a few days time after this, the UAE President passed away. The country, which was going to organize the match, had a mourning of 2 months. Only the Interior Ministry worked in a normal regime, all other ministries and bodies stopped working, all events were cancelled. The people who we were negotiating with were telling us, come back to us in December. Meanwhile, the announced dates (January 2005) were approaching, and it was clear that we will not make it. Then the Arab organizers suggested that we postponed the match to the second half of 2005, but it was not what we wished.
– During the superfinal of the Russian Championship, in the middle November 2004, the UAE Organisers representative came to Moscow. He offered to both Kasparov and Kasimdzhanov to come to Dubai for the preliminary press-conference, which was supposed to take place in the famous 7 star hotel. As far as I know, Kasparov refused. Could the match be saved at that stage?
– As I have repeated several times, FIDE is the organizing structure, it looks for the sponsors. This is not so simple to do. We have requested all participants of the process to abstain from their comments. The declarations like “anyway there is no money there”, of course did not add to the success. In the then situation, it was advisable to have made at least a small step towards the organizers. They wanted to see not only the FIDE President, but the great Grandmasters. But, there were complications regarding such a simple thing.. One of the match sponsors was in fact the famous hotel Burj Aal Arab. Its owners did want to organize a press conference of Kasimdzhanov and Kasparov, to cover their airfare, hotel accommodation. Kasimdzhanov was ready to come to Dubai. But the American manager of Kasparov, Mr. O. Willams, suggested that first, a certain financial guarantee was transferred to the account of the 13th World Champion. The Arabs refused to do so.