- JERUSALEM -- Israel's national
chess body has said that it plans to sue Libya and the World Chess Federation
(Fide) for barring its team from the official world chess championship
in Tripoli where play began recently.
-
- It is not just the Israelis who are absent. Only two
of the top 10 players in Fide's rankings have turned up following protests
that Garry Kasparov, the world number one, would be allowed to play the
tournament winner without having to participate in the qualifying rounds.
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- The exclusion of Israel is a severe embarrassment to
Fide, whose motto is Gens una sumus - We are all one people. Mohammed Gaddafi,
the son of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, only landed the contest for
his country after promising that Israeli players would be allowed in to
play. Last month he went back on his pledge, however, describing the Israelis
as "the Zionist enemy". He said they would not be invited to
the championships, for which Libya is putting up $1.5 million, equivalent
to £820,000, in prize money. Yerach Tal, a spokesman for the Israeli
Chess Association, said the ban meant that his country's team, which is
one of the strongest in the region, would suffer financial loss.
-
- "We are consulting our legal adviser on the possibility
of suing both Fide and the Libyans for compensation for the damages incurred
by our exclusion from this tournament," he said. Israel would push
for assurances from Fide over future tournaments, said Mr Tal. "We
have asked Fide that in the future, a condition for a country hosting a
major event is that it must accept teams of any nationality," he said.
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- There had been earlier expectations that Col Gaddafi
would use the opportunity to play host to Israeli chess players to bolster
his efforts to rehabilitate his international image and distance himself
from his links to militant Palestinian groups.
-
- Players arriving in Tripoli for Friday's opening ceremony
played down the controversy. "Libya was the only country that made
a bid to host the Fide championship so it is not really Fide's fault,"
said Nigel Short, the British grandmaster who is competing in the event.
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