World Championship Interview

Mr. Stefan Sergiev, PhD – president of the Bulgarian Chess Federation
http://www.anand-topalov.com

Hosting the World Chess Championship match Anand – Topalov is an acknowledgment of the prestige of our Federation!

Dr. Sergiev, would you please tell us how this match turned into reality?

The road to this match was a hard one. Three years ago, when the International Federation (FIDE) didn’t think twice to eliminate Veselin Topalov from the list of participants in World Chess Championship Tournament in 2007 in Mexico, we couldn’t even dream about such thing. But we never faltered in our faith that Topalov has his right and shouldn’t be deprived by administrative methods from competing again for the title. Such are sports: today you are on the top, the next day you are not, but you start competing again for the title from a lower step. After exchanging several letters with the FIDE President, Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov,we were given admission to the meeting of the Presidential Board in Tallin (Estonia) in June 2007, where we stated our case. At this meeting the highest officials of FIDE took the rightest decision possible by not only changing the, I would say ‘discriminative’ system of Competing for the title, but as well letting Topalov in the next cycle 2008-2010 directly from the semi-finals. This way he had to face the winner of the World Cup 2007 in Hantimansiysk – Gata Kamsky. FIDE didn’t manage to organize this match for the whole 2008, the reasons behind that are well known. Finally, in spite of the reluctance some officials who obviously intended to postpone it indefinitely and cause its failure, the match came to reality thanks to our relentless persistence. After signing a contract during the Chess Olympics in Dresden in November 2008, thing came back to normal. The forthcoming duel between Vesko and the reigning World Champion V.Anand become fact after the victory in the Challengers Match. This event will have great significance for the entire chess community as it prevents arising of a new crisis and ends with the old system of privileged and outsiders. I consider that at the moment main role play competitive results. Can’t help but mention that the essential part for organizing both Topalov – Kamsky match, as the forthcoming one between Anand and Topalov, belongs to the Bulgarian Chess Federation and to our country.

There were other candidates but Bulgaria has been unanimously chosen by the FIDE Congress as a host. Your comments?

It is normal that there are many candidates for organizing an World Chess Championship Match. This is a highly prestigious event. It is no coincidence that only 46 matches and 3 tournaments of such rank are organized in so many years and only a few countries were lucky to host them It seems that the organizing effort was easier in the past. Nowadays, there are strict requirements, as well as lots of demands from the competitors and their teams. Last but not least, is the ‘fair play’ aspect – preventing external influence etc.

Nevertheless, there were candidates to organize the match between V.Anand and V.Topalov. Besides our Federation, till the determine by FIDE deadline 30 September 2009 there were applications from Turkey and Singapore. Those candidacies were not accidental. During the last years chess in neighboring Turkey is on the rise: every year they organize dozens of high level chess events; Turkish Chess Federation enjoys substantial funds and has one of the most modern chess clubs situated on 1000 square meters. Istanbul hosted the Chess Olympics in 2000 and will receive again the chess elite in 2012. Holding a World Chess Championship event would fit perfectly with the efforts for chess popularity in this country. Situation in Singapore is very similar. Chess becomes recently very popular in South-East Asia and it gradually turns into a center of prestigious events. However, both candidacies offered lower prize fund than us, which proved to be decisive. The Congress of FIDE held in October 2009 in Kalitea (Greece) unanimously charged our Federation with organizing the match. The reason for this were the positive comments about the Topalov – Kamsky event and other international competitions held in our country recently, as well as firmly expressed government support. Delegates at the FIDE Congress were pleasantly surprised by the letter of our Prime Minister Mr. Boiko Borisov, which declared his full commitment with the organization and the course of this match.

FIDE has it clear that it becomes harder to find a neutral organizer who would cover the huge prize fund and create all the necessary conditions. So, their trust towards Bulgaria is not surprising but is backed up by many reasons.

Here is the full article.