Interview with the FIDE President, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

On FIDE website an interview with the FIDE President, Kirsan Ilumzhinov, given to Sport Express on the 8th of May 2004, has been published.

Ilyumzhinov is as optimistic as usual. He defended FIDE policies regarding organisation of the World Championships. "The main goal of FIDE is to popularise chess", he said. Ilyumzhinov confirmed that funds for the Women's World Championship in Elista would be provided by Adjarian sponsors. He also confirmed that Vietnam refused to organise a World Championship match between Kasparov and the winner of the Libyan event, but, as Ilyumzhinov said, they have "serious offers" from Dubai and Cairo, and there are also other possible venues. The match should take place in January 2005 approximately. Ilyumzhinov hopes that the exact venue will be announced during the World Championship in Tripoli.

Meanwhile, Vietnam wants to hold both the men's and women's next knockout championships as Vietnamese sponsors are interested to see their players participating. Ilyumzhinov expressed scepticism only about Ruslan Ponomariov's idea to organise a match-tournament for the unified World Championship with six players. "Realisation of this project would have required revisiting of Prague Agreements", said the FIDE President. Ilyumzhinov spoke a lot about the Prague Agreement. He is of the opinion that the unification final (between winners of Kasparov's match and Kramnik-Leko match) should take place not earlier but also not later than summer 2005. Ilyumzhinov hopes that the prize fund will be two million dollars.

At the end of the interview, Ilyumzhinov explained that a "real chess atmosphere" now exists in Kalmykia, for which he dreamt ten years ago. He said that participants of the Women's World Championship will have no problems there and welcomed everybody to Kalmykia.

by A. Baburin