AThe Baltimore Sun Baltimore, Maryland Saturday, July 01, 1972 - Page 3
Organizers Haggle With Fischer Over Fee As Chess Match Nears
Reykjavik, Iceland (AP)—Organizers of the world chess championship reported considerable progress last night in their negotiations with Bobby Fischer's lawyer over a last-minute demand for more money by the American challenger.
However, after an hour and a half session with Andrew Davis, Mr. Fischer's attorney, officials of the sponsoring Icelandic Chess Foundation said they had been given no assurance Mr. Fischer would appear for the beginning of the match tomorrow with Russia's Boris Spassky.
Compromise on Pay
A spokesman for the federation said he got the impression Mr. Davis was seeking a compromise in the dispute over the new financial conditions posed by Mr. Fischer.
Mr. Davis, Mr. Fischer's confidant as well as legal adviser, arrived here yesterday on a flight from New York that was to have carried the 29-year-old chess genius to the site of his 24-game match.
Mr. Fischer had reserved space on the plane and checked his luggage on before he changed his mind. He suddenly called for his bags from the aircraft and disappeared from New York's Kennedy Airport after holding up the flight for more than two hours.
What Mr. Davis and officials of the Icelandic Chess Federation had to sort out was a fresh demand by Mr. Fischer for 30 per cent of the gate receipts collected during the match.
Without the extra money, he threatened to boycott the match, which was scheduled to begin tomorrow.
It was learned that Gudmunder Thorarinsson, the federation president, spent most of the night in sometimes-heated telephone conversation with Mr. Fischer's representatives in the United States.
A Moscow dispatch indicated Russian concern over developments. A Tass writer claimed Mr. Fischer was disrespectful to the organizers ([and who threw the first punch?]) and was placing the value of money over that of the sport of chess. {[and,who is it that places the value of monopolizing titles by means of unfairly subdizing their players, at the expense of disadvantaging competitors in other countries? So much for fair play and good sportsmanship.])
In match preparations, which have already caused a lot of frayed nerves, one additional problem was that Mr. Davis carried no written authorization from Mr. Fischer to act on his behalf.
But federation officials were hopeful at least that hurdle could be passed.
Once Mr. Fischer earned the right to challenge Mr. Spassky, after eliminating a series of strong opponents in the challenge round, plans began to go awry for the “match of the century.” ([That is so, because “old hands” in Reykjavik/Belgrade were seeking to find an excuse to disqualify and then replace Fischer with Petrosian.]).
There have been disputes over money ([and why shouldn't there be? Australia offered “…$200,000 of the $225,000 would go towards prize money, with the remaining $25,000 for expenses,” whilst Mexico bid totalled 175 grand, but the Soviet would like to cover all that up, making a payoff of peanuts, along with complete censorship, knowing the illusion of the Soviet Ubermensch is soon to be shattered on the world stage)], the site, lighting conditions, housing and even the kind of car the host federation should provide for Mr. Fischer. [And why not? When they had refused for months, as Col. Ed Edmonson asked them to do, to sit down and work out the arrangements with Fischer man-to-man. The Soviets even forbid Spassky to travel for it, when Spassky argued it was necassary that he should meet Fischer in person at the Amsterdam conference in January 1972. The organizers failed to work out the details in a timely manner, hence, this needless delay.]
