Yesterday was the first time in a while we have heard from Mrs. Nahed Ojjeh, a Syrian-born French millionaire who has spent piles of money supporting the arts in France and who turned her eye to supporting French chess. A rumored romance with Kramnik was at the very least a firm friendship as she chipped in $300,000 for the Dortmund qualifier last year (well it's Euros not dollars but my keyboard doesn't have that funky symbol). This was organized by Einstein, who have a contract with Kramnik.
As mentioned in DD 13 below, Einstein apparently didn't pay out all the money to the players and now Ojjeh has issued a statement breaking off all relations with Einstein. Call it chapter 93 of that classic book, "101 Ways to Alienate Chess Sponsors". Considering reports of Einstein's financial woes, maybe that should be Chapter 11.
I'd heard of these problems earlier and tried to contact the players, including Gelfand. But in general they don't like to go public with these things, as was also the case when FIDE checks were bouncing after the Vegas KO WC in 1999. They are told that if they shut up they will get paid eventually and they don't make waves, or maybe that's just what they think.
