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| To Ruslan Ponomariov, FIDE World Champion 11.04.2004 Dear Mr Ponomariov, We thank you for addressing the 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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