Private sponsors for 3 million euros

The three million euro needed for the organisation of the April 5-25 2010 showdown for the world chess crown in Sofia between Bulgarian challenger Vesselin Topalov and India’s defending champion Viswanathan Anand, will be covered by sponsors.

“Bulgarian Chess Federation is in talks with about 40 companies, a large part of whom would say yes to sponsoring the event,” Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily quoted Stefan Sergiev, head of the Bulgarian Chess Federation as saying on November 25 2009..

“For now I can not give any more details as the sponsorship contract hasn’t been signed yet. I expect this to happen in the middle of December, when the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, will come to Bulgaria” Sergiev said.

That is when Bulgaria would know if the match would make a profit, he said, because Bulgaria was yet to negotiate the commercial rights of the match with FIDE.

“It is absurd that although we are hosting and organising the event, we still have to negotiate the commercial rights with FIDE and after that start selling TV rights,” Sergiev said.

There was no point in Bulgaria paying for the commercial rights and this would be Bulgaria’s position during the talks with FIDE, he said.

Sergiev said that although the Bulgarian state would not be directly involved in financing the match, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov was very active in finding sponsors. Borissov had previously promised the Government’s support for organising the match and was even made the chairperson of the organisation committee.

Sofia’s bid to host the event offered to spend three million euro on organising the event and a further two million euro in prize money. FIDE picked Sofia over Turkey and Singapore.

Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar