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To Ruslan Ponomariov, FIDE World Champion 11.04.2004
Dear Mr Ponomariov,
We thank you for addressing the Association of Chess Professionals ( ACP
)on
the most important issue of the forthcoming 2004 FIDE World Championship.
It does strike us as illogical that the official FIDE World Champion
should
take part in a large knock-out event that will produce a winner, when the
latter is then obliged to play a title match with a seeded player who is
not
a title holder. Considering that the seeded player was your official
challenger for the same title several months before, the current format
imposed by FIDE is devoid of any sense from the sporting point of view.
Therefore, we fully understand your position on this matter and inform you
that it is shared by other leading players.
If you consider that your rights are being infringed from a legal
standpoint
by FIDE, you may send us all relevant documents and we shall contact the
lawyer of the ACP on your behalf, in order to investigate this case.
With best regards,
The ACP Board 11.04.2004
ACP on Player's Undertaking
Dear chess colleagues,
It has officially been announced that the next 2004 FIDE World Chess
Championship will be held from the 18th of June until the 13th of July,
2004, in Tripoli (Libya) and Valetta (Malta). Qualified players have been
asked by the FIDE Secretariat to sign a copy of the "Player's
Undertaking",
before the 21st of April 2004, as presented on the FIDE website.
This document does not constitute a proper contract between the
participants
and FIDE, for the simple reason that it only describes the player's
obligations towards FIDE, whereas no mention is made of FIDE's obligations
toward the players. Moreover, the undertaking is to be signed only by the
participant and bears no signature from any FIDE representative, thus
relieving FIDE of any legal responsibility. This means that should a
dispute
arise, FIDE will have a signed commitment from the participant to produce
in
court, while the latter is left empty-handed.
Among several contentious points, we would like to draw your attention to
the obligation for the players to stay in the official hotels, either in
Libya or in Malta. Although highly unpopular, this compulsory measure is
once more imposed on the participants, and this time without any mention
of
the expected prices for accommodation.
We have also noted some rather questionable clauses in the contract, such
as
the obligation for the winner in Tripoli (or Malta!) to play a match with
Garry Kasparov within the abnormally long period of two years, when there
is
no evidence that FIDE has a signed agreement with the latter on this
matter.
The necessity to further follow the Prague Agreement is also out of place,
since to our knowledge it is no longer valid.
And last, but not least, there is no clause indicating whether the
participants will be compensated by FIDE, should the event in Libya and
Malta be cancelled at the last minute. Similarly, nothing is foreseen in
the
case that payment to the players is delayed by several months, as has
repeatedly been the case in previous editions of the FIDE World
Championship.
The ACP Board considers that, in view of FIDE's recent cancellation of the
Kasparov-Ponomariov match and the 2002 FIDE Rapid Grand Prix, the
participants need real guarantees from FIDE in regard to the upcoming
World
Championship, which in fact is but a standard procedure in all
professional
sports. The current "Player's Undertaking" offers no such guarantee.
The ACP Board asks its members who are qualified for the 2004 FIDE World
Championship to not hurry in signing the "Player's Undertaking". In a few
days, we shall submit to FIDE a model of contract that we would like to
see
used for the 2004 FIDE World Championship.
With best regards,
The ACP Board 8.04.2004
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