CHENNAI: 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.
Would love to play in India: Anand
All the qualities that have contributed to Viswanathan Anand becoming a multiple
world champion were on full view at the Chinnaswamy stadium on Sunday. NIIT’s
brand ambassador was in the City to interact with participants and winners of
their corporate chess championship, hand over prizes, take questions from the
media and play simultaneous chess.
Anand said he would be delighted if his World Championship match next year
too could be hosted in India. “I would love to play in India, I hope something
like that happens sooner rather than later,” he remarked. “The decision
on where to host the next Championship match hasn’t been made yet, let’s
just wait and watch. The last time I played in India was the 2002 World Cup
at Hyderabad and I really enjoyed the experience.”
