Bulgaria Bids to Host Chess World Championship

Bulgaria Bids to Host Chess World Championship

byPetar Kostadinov

Bulgaria wants to host the 2010 world chess crown match between Bulgarian grandmaster Vesselin Topalov and world champion Viswanathan Anand, Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said on September 3 2009.

"We have a duty to stand behind our champion and give him the opportunity to play in his home country," Borissov said after meeting Topalov and manager Silvio Danailov.

Borissov accepted the invitation to head the committee that will attempt to secure Sofia as the host city and called upon Bulgarian businesses and institutions to sponsor the event.

Costs were estimated at about six million leva and Borissov said that plan B was for the state to cover the expenses.

The deadline for submitting bids for hosting the match is September 30 2009, while the showdown itself is tentatively scheduled for early-2010. So far, interest in hosting the match has been shown by the Chechen capital Grozny, Dubai and Delhi.

Topalov won the right to challenge Anand for the title after winning the chess crown pretenders match against American Gata Kamsky on February 26 2009. Topalov's superb performance forced Kamsky to concede on the 45th move of the seventh match, with one game to spare.

Topalov, the 2005 world champion in the world chess federation FIDE championship, but lost it in the unification match to Professional Chess Association champion Vladimir Kramnik. Topalov and Anand, the two top-ranked grandmasters in the FIDE rankings, was initially scheduled to be played in 2009, but has been postponed.