Chess Today issue CT105(1254) - Wednesday April 14, 2004 . ACP : We are prepared to protect all chess players interests. Here are the excerpts from Chesstoday. My comments will follow.www.chesstoday.netACP:
We are Prepared to Protect
All Chess Players'
Interests Yuri
Vasiliev interviewed ACP President GM
Joel Lautier for
Russian newspaper Sport
Express. We
would like to thank our reader Jim Marfia for translating this interview
into English especially for Chess Today.
The
President of the recently-formed Association of Chess Professionals (ACP),
French Grandmaster Joel Lautier, made good contacts with the press one of
the main principles in the activities of the new 'chess players union'. So
when I called him in Paris, he was happy to share his opinions on Ruslan
Ponomariov's open letter — Joel, what was your reaction to FIDE
Champion Ruslan Ponomariov's open letter?
—
It was obvious that Ponomariov would not agree to participate in the World
Championship. After all, it wasn't too long ago that he had the chance to
play Kasparov at once, in the Final; here, they were going to make him
fight his way through. Clearly, the World Champion was not about to agree
to this. The membership of the Association express their solidarity with
Ponomariov, who was deprived of a chance to play a match with Kasparov for
unconvincing reasons. This situation, where Kasparov is immediately
allowed into the Final, while Ponomariov has to fight his way up from
Stage One, appears inadequate to us.
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Hangin's take : I sent this letter to ChessToday.
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