Tuesday 2 March 2010

Karpov for FIDE President?

From this story on Chessvibes comes the news that former World Champion Anatoly Karpov is planning to run for FIDE President. Seems to be a brave choice, unless Karpov is privy to some inside information concerning the movements of current FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. For a while there have been rumours that Kirsan was angling for a diplomatic posting from the Russian government, but so far nothing has come of this.
In 2006 Bessel Kok ran a high profile campaign for the job, only to go down to defeat. Conventional wisdom was that no one would run against Kirsan in 2010, as the FIDE Congress was to be held in Khanty-Mansiysk, where Kirsan holds the (almost) home field advantage. However if Karpov runs (with the required endorsement of the Russian Chess Federation) it could be an interesting battle. On the other hand Kirsan may repeat his tactic from 2002 and simply offer Karpov a sinecure to not run.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Karpov wants easy money!
Bessel Kok spent a fortune and look at what he settled for!
C'mon Anatoly!