No Carlsen & Russian propaganda
Chess farce: Nobody wants to host the World Cup
By Christian Schenzel
01/12/2023, 7:10 p.m
At the beginning of April, the new chess world champion will be played out in a duel between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren. It is still not clear where the two grandmasters will meet. This is also related to superstar Magnus Carlsen.
Time is pressing, but a solution is still not in sight. The search for a venue for the 2023 World Chess Championship is becoming more and more of a farce. Although the first game between Ian Nepomniachtchi and Ding Liren is to take place in 86 days, the world association FIDE has not yet found a host for its most important event. Levy Rozman, one of the most popular and biggest chess streamers, put his finger in the wound this week and wrote on Twitter of an “organizational and communicative catastrophe”. FIDE spokesman David Llada agreed in part, telling “chess24.com” from “justified criticism”.
Llada justified the fact that the search was protracted, among other things, with planning problems as part of a re-sorting of the chess calendar after the pandemic. “That’s why we had a much tighter time frame this time.” An understandable explanation, but certainly not the only one. The bigger problem, unspoken by the association, is probably that superstar Magnus Carlsen is no longer part of the world championship this year. The Norwegian has relinquished his title and will not take part in a World Cup match for the first time since 2013. The event is therefore missing the biggest driving force that the sport has to offer. This deters sponsors, among other things.
The dominant superstar is missing
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“This is probably the least interesting World Cup game in a long time,” said Norway’s chess expert Atle Grönn in the “Dagbladet” interview, which FIDE cannot publicly admit. Even with Magnus Carlsen there were always problems finding a venue, Grönn remarked. Without the superstar, however, it is much more difficult. Chess journalist Tarjei Svendsen takes a similar view and says: “It is clear that it is much more difficult to organize a World Championship if the player who has dominated chess for the past decade is missing.” But the absence of Carlsen is just another problem. Grönn speculates that one of the challengers is also deterring potential financiers.
“In the end, ‘Nepo’ represents Russia. That makes it more complicated for western countries to host it,” he said, referring to Ian Nepomniachtchi’s background. who distanced himself from the war early on, but in the end could still be exploited by the Russian state media, especially since chess is extremely popular in Russia. In November, President Arkady Dvorkovich indicated that FIDE absolutely wants to prevent such headlines when he clearly rebuffed a World Cup in Russia and thus reacted to a recommendation by the IOC.
Russia is or was perhaps the most important and largest market for the association, alongside the USA, China and India. The war temporarily paralyzed this market. From the point of view of the association, this is one thing above all: bad for business.
The Mexico project failed
In November, FIDE still hoped to have found a World Cup organizer. Confirming talks with a promoter in Mexico, Dvorkovich stated: “We will make a decision within a month.” Almost two months later, this decision is still a long time coming. Mexico, spokesman David Llada has now revealed, has since withdrawn. The project that was presented to the association there was so tempting that the potential host was given more time. “But this ambitious plan didn’t materialize. That’s why we’re now thinking about alternative offers,” he told chess24.com.
FIDE has just received another offer from a country on the American continent. A delegation is going there this week. “If they come back, we’ll be in a position to make a decision,” Llada assured. Atle Grönn trusts these statements and believes: “I think they will manage.” A happy figure, that’s already clear, the association can no longer give up. It’s far too late for that.