The Executive Board hath spoken

Communique of the 74th FIDE Congress, Kallithea, Halkidiki, Greece

At the 74th FIDE Congress in Kallithea, Greece, FIDE took a number of important decisions and made some interesting announcements. For the very impatient (and those with attention deficiency syndrome) we bring you a summary in two sentences:

Here are the main points in greater detail:

1. The Executive Board endorsed the decision of President Ilyumzhinov to cancel the Ponomariov-Kasparov 2003 World Chess Championship Match and to organize in its place the World Championship (Knock Out) tournament. They criticised Ponomariov for dictating "unacceptable terms" and praised Kasparov for his "cooperative attitude".

2. The Board empowered the FIDE President to decide on the final details of the format of the next FIDE world championship, allowing him to hold it as one gigantic 124-player event or to split it into two, three or four groups, making it possible to spread the costs of hosting the event.
   
   [Comment: We hear that Azerbaijan and Bulgaria are showing interest in staging parts of the event; and that President Ilyumzhinov and deputy president George Makropoulos are attempting to stage the match between the winner of the next FIDE world championship and Garry Kasparov during the Olympic Games in Athens]

3. The Georgian Chess Federation has offered to organize the Women’s World Chess Championship in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the period May-June 2004 with a prize fund of $450,000.

4. FIDE will be moving its Secretariat from Lausanne to Athens in order to reduce the running costs.

5. The 36th Chess Olympiad will be held on the island of Majorca (Spain) from October 21 to 31, 2004.

6. The 37th Chess Olympiad will be held in the Italian city of Turin from May 20 to June 4, 2006.

7. Armenia, Germany, Sweden and Argentina have expressed interest to host the 2008 Olympiad.

8. The World Youth Championship 2004 will take place in Crete, Greece, while the same event for the years 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 have been awarded to Belfort, France; India, Antalya-Izmir, Turkey and Vietnam respectively.

9. The World Juniors and Girls 2004 are in early September in Calcutta, India; the World Juniors and Girls 2005 and 2007 events were awarded to the Turkish and Armenian Chess Federations.

10. The World Rapid Chess Championship 2005 will be held in Cap d’Agde, France, the World Youth Team Championship 2005 was awarded to the United States Chess Federation, and the Inaugural World Major Open Championship to be held in Scarborough, England.

11. FIDE approved the new World Youth Intercontinental Championship for the winners of each category in continental championships.

12. FIDE declared the years 2004 and 2005 as the year of Tigran Petrossian and the year of Chess in Schools respectively.

• Full text of the Communique of the 74th FIDE Congress, Kallithea, Halkidiki, Greece
  Halkidiki 3rd November 2003.