Honored to host the World Championship

Bulgaria PM: We Are Honored to Host World Chess Title Match
Sports December 16, 2009, Wednesday

The President of World Chess Federation (FIDE), Kirsan Ilyumdzhinov, and the Chair of the Bulgarian Chess Federation, Stefan Sergiev, signed Wednesday in Sofia the contract for hosting the final Chess World Championship Match in 2010.

The chess face-off between current world champion Viswanathan Anand from India and Bulgaria’s chess master Veselin Topalov, who is currently number one in the FIDE world ranking (Anand is third) will start on April 21, 2010.

Topalov and Anand will play 12 games. In case they finish with a tie, they will hold a tiebreaker including 4 games of fast chess.

For 140 years of chess championship there have been 19 such World Title matches, and all them turned into historic battles. Why is it important for us that Bulgaria and Sofia were picked to host this historic game? We can just imagine that the opponent of our representative Topalov is a representative of India, a nation of over one billion people, vs. tiny Bulgaria of 8 million. It is an honor and pleasure for us to become a center of global attention with this match. Let’s wish Topalov the best of luck. Once again, I thank FIDE for the hosting of this match, which is a recognition for Bulgaria, which has had world chess champions from among both men and women,” Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said during the ceremony.

Source: http://www.novinite.com