Just days before the competition, the Russian Chess Federation had addressed FIDE with the request to change the tournament’s venue since Levon Aronyan had stated several times that he will never play in Baku and FIDE decided to change it to Kazan.

Let us remind that Levon Aronyan (Armenia), Temur Rajabov, Shakiryar Mammedyarov (both from Azerbaijan), Vladimir Kramnik (Russia), Magnus Carlsen (Norway), Veselin Topalov (Bulgaria), Boris Gelfand (Israel) and Gata Kamsky (USA) have been qualified to participate in the 2001 Chess Candidates Tournament.

According to a number of Azerbaijani presses, Azerbaijan’s Chess Federation is preparing to protest FIDE’s decision.