World Chess Championship 2013 Should be Held in Neutral Territory: Magnus Carlsen

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi everyone, 

While all that talk of India hosting the World Chess Championship 2013 goes on in the Indian media, we await confirmation from Fide and the Challenger, Magnus Carlsen, himself. Chess news website www.chess-news.ru has posted an interesting analytical article with reference to World No. 1's comments given to Norwegian website NRK. 

Chess-News states: Where the next World Championship Match between Vishy Anand and Magnus Carlsen is going to take place? This question is asked more and more frequently as the date of the match approaches. Despite that there's no official information. The wish of hosting the match has been announced by Norwegian Tromso and Indian Chennai; according to rumours New York is also interested in holding the event. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the FIDE president, is "visiting one of the European countries for further negotiations" he has stated in the recent interview given to the Russian TV channel.

Ilyumzhinov's earlier announcements should also be taken into consideration: after the World Championship Match 2012 Anand - Gelfand which was held in the Tretyakov Gallery he noted that Chennai would be given a priority in getting the right to hold the event.

This has been remembered by the Bharat Singh Chauhan, Secretary of All India Chess Federation, "We started our move even before the Challenger started. We had assurance from FIDE that we can hold the World Championship this year without a bidding and fixed a deadline of 10th April 2013 for us to confirm or otherwise. [...]

We would have bid for the match in any case. The opponent for Anand as such was not important for us per se. However with Carlsen coming out first we are all even more excited as we believe this will be one of the greatest matches ever. And to hold in the country where chess was supposedly born, is a dream come true. We in the Indian chess federation, will do everything possible to see to it that this becomes one of the best matches ever organised.

I dont think Carlsen will be any way reluctant to play in India. Anand played against Kramnik in Germany, Topalov in Bulgaria and then Gelfand in Russia in the last three matches. For Carlsen its the first match ever and we are prepared to host him in the best possible way. We Indians pride in our hospitality and Carlsen will get the treatment worthy of a challenger of the world chess championship. He will be received with open arms, I along with millions of chess fans awaits Carlsen in India." Chessdom quotes Mr. Chauhan.

According to the Norwegian website nrk.no Magnus Carlsen would like the event to be held on neutral territory, "Playing on neutral territory is a tradition and it would be fair regarding me," GM said.

Magnus Carlsen's manager Espen Agdestein is surprised why isn't there the application call for the countries who wish to host the event, "It's strange that there isn't a competition. There's indeed a huge interest towards the event so FIDE has a great opportunity to get very interesting offers. That seems to me strange and silly.

India is not a neutral territory and in addition it will be hard for Magnus to play there because of the climate and food."

It seems no one remembers Agon has been given the right to organize the whole cycle of the World Championship Matches, states Chess-News.

However, all said and done, we look forward to the World Chess Championship 2013 as it would be the big clash of generations and sure to benefit chess no matter who wins!

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