The Gazette Montreal, Quebec, Canada Monday, July 03, 1972 - Page 35
Tomorrow Deadline for Fischer
New York - (UPI) - Bobby Fischer, the American chess champion who was scheduled to begin play for the world title in Iceland remained in seclusion in New York yesterday while his lawyers tried to work out better financial terms.
The International Chess Federation (FIDE), which had threatened to bar Fischer, 29, permanently from world championship play if he failed to appear for the first game against Russian world champion Boris Spassky yesterday at 1 p.m. EDT, relented at the last minute and gave him a two-day extension.
An Icelandic friend of Fischer's, Freystein Thorbergsson, was flying to New York last night to try to persuade him to go to Reykjavik and play the match.
Fischer changed his mind at the last minute about boarding a flight to Reykjavik last week and was not on the last direct flight to the Icelandic capital Saturday night.
Whether Fischer would meet the Tuesday deadline might well hinge on whether his representatives in Iceland could come to terms with the Icelandic Chess Federation, sponsor of the match, on his share of the take, chess sources said.
The original agreement was for the winner to get five eighths of a $125,000 prize plus 30 per cent of television, but Fischer recently asked for 60 per cent of the television money and an additional 30 per cent of the gate.
Fischer's whereabouts were not disclosed but he was reported earlier this weekend staying with a doctor in the New York borough of Queens.
Tomorrow Deadline for Fischer 03 Jul 1972, Mon The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec, Canada) Newspapers.com
