Letter by Boris Kutin to Kirsan Ilyumzhinov

FIDE President
Mr Kirsan llyumzhinov
9 Siggrou Avenue
11743 Athens, Greece

27 February 2009

Dear Mr President,

First of all accept my apology being absent for the second time in my more than ten years capacity of member of the Board (that time I was in the hospital). I cannot be with you due to my obligations in Europe. Exactly at the same time is the opening ceremony of European Women’s Championship in St. Petersburg.

More important (and more painful) is the clash with the very first FIDE Grand Prix tournament for women. There are only a few woman/s strong tournaments per year and the two strongest ones should be played at the same time?

I was told that at the closing ceremony of the very first Ataturk memorial last year it was announced that the tournament would keep the day around 8 March. Is this correct to Belgrade organizers who already organize the WGM tournament for almost 50 years and many times that the tournament was absolutely the strongest in the world?

But this is not my main point. Even Belgrade’s traditional tournament is a private one, it is not an official FIDE event. In our case we have two extremely important FIDE events (European Championship is a qualification for the World Championship) at the same time. We have announced our date at the Dresden Olympiad and FIDE decided to go with Women’s Grand Prix without a single phone call to us.

Unfortunately this is not the end of the story. The Second Woman’s Grand Prix will be in Nanjing, China, exactly at the same time of the European Club Cup. You know very well this event is the second strongest team event, immediately after the Olympiad, with more than 200 GMs from all continents. For many clubs (especially top ones) this will cause big damage. For sure for some players will be in breach of contract. Really I have no comment, remembering the situation in last October, having a clash with World Mind Games and European Club Cup.

Dear Mr. President, in such way we are loosing our credibility – both, FIDE and ECU.

And one, not so important story, but still important for me: in beginning of February I called our office, asking if the date of PB is already known. I got the answer that Mr. Raycsanyi is still hoping to organize the meeting in Budapest, but chances are not too good. In such situation I offered my help and asked for FIDE demands. The answer in written form was very shortly: 25 rooms with full board and 25.000 Euro for the tickets. In a very short time I did not get any confirmation from Croatia (City of Rijeka). I was not surprised hearing a few days after that Board will be in Istanbul, but I was very surprised that the host covers just accommodation. How is this possible Mr. President?

With best wishes for good work and best regards,

Boris Kutin
Continental President for Europe