Pages

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Anand to defend world chess championship title in India?

Chess blog for latest news and trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2011

Hi everyone,

With London withdrawing from the bid to host the 2012 World Chess Championship, it is India that has stepped forward to bid for the event.

According a report in the Indian newspaper, The Times of India, dateline Chennai, it is reported that India would most probably host Viswanathan Anand's world chess title match in 2012. India's decision to join the fray came after London withdrew its bid to host the match last week.


Though the FIDE (world chess federation) had not confirmed the venue because the qualifying matches (Candidates phase) to identify the challenger to Anand were still in progress, the London organizers wanted an agreement to be reached by January 29, 2011.

FIDE had its presidential board meeting in Turkey last weekend which was attended by All India Chess Federation secretary DV Sundar. "The meeting did not discuss any bid in detail," Sundar told TOI. "But we offered to host the match in India," added Sundar, who is also the vice-president of FIDE.

London was projected as the city to host the match since 2009 but the sponsors found it difficult to finalize the deal with FIDE. At the moment, only Anand is the sure candidate for the match and his challenger would emerge from a series of Candidates matches to be held this year. "FIDE can't finalize any venue before the Candidates matches are over in May because the venue should be acceptable to the challenger as well. So the bids would be finalized only in May. Unfortunately, London said they could not wait that long," said Sundar.

You can read this report in full here. Meanwhile, in another report in Deccan Herald, World Champion Viswanathan Anand has said that he would love to play in India!

From  Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.