I've received various reactions lately, due to my protest against FIDE. Unfortunately, some of them seemed to severely miss out on my intentions. It's actually quite simple: I would like as many as possible to tell FIDE that it's unacceptable to make major changes to an ongoing qualification cycle, giving privileges to players not willing to take part in the Grand Prix series, while punishing and breaking the contracts of those who actually supported FIDE's 2007 efforts to establish regular and predictable WC cycles.
While certain changes to the Grand Prix series could've been considered reasonable after its completion, it's completely unreasonable and irrelevant to the perceived problem to introduce special treatment and favourism of 4 players (where 3 weren't even participating so far) while seriously devaluing the ongoing qualification events, harming the relationship to the current sponsors. It can already be concluded that FIDE's handling of the situation only has increased the uncertainty regarding the ongoing and future WC cycles, quite contrary to the stated purpose.
FIDE's failure in terms of communication, both with respect to informing their members of what's currently going on and even more the inexplicable decision not to consult the Grand Prix participants when considering changes that would turn everything upside-down for a 20-ish number of professional players under contract, speaks volumes about the organization's "professionalism" and ability to deal with delicate situations. If influential people within IOC would have a critical look at FIDE, there is no doubt in my mind that the handling of mostly irrelevant doping tests would be peanuts compared to the striking inability to produce a fair and transparent battlefield for the World Championship title.
If you basically share my views, then please write FIDE an email and tell them how you feel. You can direct it to either
For more information about the issue in question, please visit for instance Mig's blog (see the first article and the follow-up) and the original announcement of the changes from FIDE.
PS! Those who were led to believe from my initial sarcastic protest that I actually wanted money from FIDE (an organization that constantly lacks money, unable to support all its basic functions appropriately), can find a correction of that interpretation on www.chessgames.com.