NEWSLETTER 102 (January 08, 2013) ARTICLE ABOUT THE ECU PRESIDENT SILVIO DANAILOV IN FORBES BULGARIA The worldwide famous magazine FORBES in its Bulgarian edition published an article about the President of the European Chess Union, Mr. Silvio Danailov. Please find below the translation of the article in English. IN BULGARIA I HAD EVERYTHING I NEEDED, BUT IF I WANTED TO BE A TOP CONTENDER, I HAD TO BE WHERE THE BEST IN THE WORLD PLAYED Silvio Danailov, manager of the chess champion Veselin Topalov CHESS IS BUSINESS Silvio Danailov, Veselin Topalov‟s Manager, has done a masterful job of turning chess into a successful business By Eleonora Tarandova The red carpet is rolled out in front of Cinema City to welcome two of the most powerful men in the world of chess, Silvio Danailov (51) and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (50). They are in the company of Robert Mundell (80), also known as the father of the Euro. Marcie Ries, the newly appointed US ambassador to Bulgaria walks in a few paces behind. They have come to see the premier of Bobby Fisher against the World. Danailov and the Nobel Prize winner, Mundell, head for the back rows. We have been told that the Head of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) Mr. Ilyumzhinov will be here only for the official part of the premiere featuring a speech by Mrs. Ries as his plane is waiting for him on the runway. The former Governor of the Kalmykia Province meets a lot of powerful people in his capacity as President of the Chess Federation and this is beneficial to his business. © Ecuonline.net Page 1 Danailov employs a similar lobbyist practice and his goal is to transform chess into “a well organized enterprise offering a product which sponsors want and find desirable”. Lately the President of the European Chess Union has often been seen in the company of Mundell. The Canadian economist is a sought-after advisor and Danailov likes to maintain an image of a new-school entrepreneur who wishes to sell chess as a sport but also as an art form, and a vehicle for culture and education. The two of them became friends when they met for the first time back in 2008 in Nanjing, China when they stayed at the same hotel and Mundell attended the games at the Pearl Spring Tournament. Two years later the Canadian made the symbolic first move in Game 5 of the world chess finals featuring the Bulgarian grandmaster Veselin Topalov and the reigning champion Viswanathan Anand in Sofia. „When the Prime Minister heard that Mundell was here, he invited us right away and even asked for a second meeting later to seek economic advice‟ says Mr. Danailov who took Veselin Topalov to the world title in 2005 and helped Ruslan Ponomariov win his title in 2002. During the years he has gone through various stages in his career. He has been a chess player, coach, manager, and later on, a tournament organizer and promoter. In the late 70s as a player he was number 8 in the World Junior Championship and later broke through to the top 3 in the European Juniors. „In Bulgaria I had everything I needed, but if I wanted to be a top contender, I had to be where the best in the world played. Back in communist times I could not travel © Ecuonline.net Page 2 freely and hence I could not develop as a player‟ Mr. Danailov explains. When he finally got a chance to travel, he was already in his 30s. He signed up for tournaments across the globe from Australia to the US and tried to make a living from prize money but quickly realized that he was past his prime as a player. It was at that moment that he saw his opening: „there were no managers and no professional structure in chess so I decided to take a chance‟. In 1991 Danailov registered his company Kaisa Chess Management. His main asset was a 16-year-old grandmaster by the name of Veselin Topalov who brought him millions even before winning the world title. Many players would jump at the chance to become his clients but Danailov decided to take on only a few more of them including a Frenchman, a US and an Austrian player. He was interested only in players who had the potential to take the world title or „break into the top 10 in the world in the worst case scenario‟. Right from the start Danailov told Topalov that if he wanted to be the best, they had to go where the highest-profile chess forums were held, right to the very heart of the chess world – Spain. First Danailov moved to Barcelona. Later he and Topalov relocated to Madrid before finally settling IN Salamanca where they still reside „because from there you could easily get to where you wanted to go‟. In the beginning they started targeting chess tournaments with up to 10 000 Dollars in prize money but very soon they made it to the big 200 000-dollar competitions. Less than 24 months later, in 1993, Veselin Topalov reached number 8 in the world ranking and started getting invitations to the world‟s biggest tournaments with up to 500 000 Dollars in prize money. IN BULGARIA I HAD EVERYTHING I NEEDED, BUT IF I WANTED TO BE A TOP CONTENDER, I HAD TO BE WHERE THE BEST IN THE WORLD PLAYED © Ecuonline.net Page 3 In 2002 Danailov and Topalov helped Ruslan Ponomariov win the world title. The 18-year-old Ukrainian was playing the heavily favored Vasiliy Ivanchuk. „He had a huge team but they were running out of ideas with about a month till the finals. They called us and told us they needed our help. Topalov was going to coach him and they wanted me as manager‟ Mr. Danailov says. Ponomariov ended up winning by a score of 4.5 to 2.5 points making him the youngest world champion in the history of the sport. In 2004 he was preparing for a unification match for Garry Kasparov‟s title and a 2 million dollar check. „I had everything lined up but at the time Kasparov had already launched his dissident campaign against Putin and the Russian Federation did not wand that game to be played because they knew he was going to win. The game was sabotaged at the highest political level‟ Silvio Danailov explains. He used this setback as an inspiration – his new ambition is to organize high-profile tournaments. He had seen how it was done it in many places across the world and had learned from the mistakes of others. All he needed now were sponsors to make things happen. In 2002 the former CEO of the M-Tel telecommunication company offered him an endorsement deal for Topalov. The arrangement was simple, if the company was happy with their success, they could opt to sponsor chess events. Thus in 2004 for the price of 50 thousand Euro Danailov managed to bring Anand to Sofia for exhibition match of lightning chess with Topalov. M-Tel were happy with the event and so Danailov told Nikolov „We should try to organize a high-profile tournament with about 500 thousand Dollars in prize money‟. This idea lead to the M-Tel Masters Tournament which for five straight years was one of the biggest chess tournaments in the world offering 350 thousand euro in prize money. Danailov was named the executive tournament director and transformed the chess competition into a show with various ancillary social and promotional events. His piece de resistance however was placing the glass cubicle where six of the best players in the world played directly in front of the National Theater building. „The tournament raked in about 500 thousand euro in advertising revenue which we collected and the Bulgarian National Television broadcast footage of the event. The advertising spots M-Tel got were worth about four times the money they invested in the organization of the tournament‟ Mr. Danailov told us. To make chess more attractive for the public and sponsors, Mr. Danailov invented the worldwide famous anti-draw rule called Sofia Rule. He developed this idea even further by unifying some of the world‟s biggest tournaments using the formula employed in tennis and golf and became director of the Grand Slam Series. His idea was quickly adopted by FIDE which started its own Grand Prix Series. In 2006 Danailov called a meeting of the directors of all tournaments offering upwards of 300 000 euro in prize money. It was held in the conference room of Grand Hotel Sofia. There he convinced them that if they joined forces, they could attract big sponsors. As a result the Grand Slam Chess Association © Ecuonline.net Page 4 was formed and the Bulgarian, five-year business plan in his pocket, was named its CEO. The Grand Slam started in 2008 in five countries raking in about 1.8 million euro in sponsorship endorsements to be used for prize money. M-Tel Masters was now in the company of tournament juggernauts such as the Dutch Corus Competition held in Vijk-aan-See (currently Tata Steel), the Linares Tournament, the Amsterdam Tournament, the Pearl Spring Tournament in Nanjing, and the series final – the Bilbao Masters in Bilbao, Spain which in 2011 was co-hosted by Sao Paulo, Brazil. Danailov tried to expand in the American market by striking a deal with the American Chess Foundation (AF4C) sponsored by the likes of Microsoft, J. P. Morgan and Chase and Co, Merrill Lynch and Starbucks for a 750 000-dollar super tournament in Seattle but the project was stopped in its tracks by the economic crisis.