World chess champion Garry Kasparov and his challenger rebelled Friday against the World Chess Federation, rejecting a title match it had set up and organizing a competing association.
A joint statement from Kas-parov and challenger Nigel Short of Britain signaled a new era in professional chess and dealt a potentially crippling blow to the previously all-powerful World Chess Federation, known by its initials in French as FIDE.Kasparov, 29, and Short, 27, said they had not been consulted as required before FIDE decided on Feb. 23 to stage their 24-game title match in August in Manchester, England. FIDE falsely claimed they had been consulted, they said.
The two players called for new bids to stage what they called the Professional World Chess Championship under the auspices of the new Professional Chess Association.
Officials at FIDE headquarters in Lucerne, Switzerland, refused to comment.
In their statement, Kasparov and Short said FIDE had shown "willful disregard" for the players at other championships.
In February 1985, they said, FIDE President Florencio Campomanes of the Philippines halted Kasparov's championship match in Moscow against then-world champion Anatoly Karpov. Kasparov and Short said the action was "condemned as profoundly unethical" by chess players around the world.