From Wikipedia:

Valery Salov (born May 26, 1964 in Wrocław, Poland) is a Russian chess grandmaster.

Salov was awarded the International Master title in 1984 and the Grandmaster title in 1986. He was the World under-17 Champion in 1980 and European Junior Champion in 1983-84. He shared the 1st place with Alexander Beliavsky in the 1987 USSR Championship but lost the play-off match (+0 -2 =2). At the 1988 USSR Championship he finished 3rd= with Artur Yusupov, behind Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov.

He qualified twice for the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship. In 1988, he reached the round of 16 but was defeated by Jan Timman in his first match (+0 -1 =5).

His best result was in the FIDE World Chess Championship 1996. He qualified for the Candidates and won his first two matches against Alexander Khalifman and Jan Timman, to reach the final 4. He then lost at the semi-final stage to Gata Kamsky.

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Rybka 4.1 x64:

A private letter (that may become open if necessary) to Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan from GM Valery Salov, President of the WPC.

Dear Yasser,

You are the old friend of mine and first of all <I would like to thank you for choosing me as one of your addressees and for sharing with me the content of your open letter to FIDE. I have a few remarks about it. In my opinion it's an utterly irresponsible, rude, unfair, callous, wild, shortsighted, demagogic, berserk, biased, prejudicial, arrogant, unmarketable, mistaken, perfidious and - forgive me for being tough with you - a totally mendacious document>. You must have been tragically misinformed by someone (probably by some unscrupulous members of the American Federation - AF) and used as a battering-ram in a disingenuous political game, aimed at destroying FIDE, chessworld and consequently the lives of your colleagues. Yasser, please, don't force me to scrutinize your letter clause by clause, save my time and your own reputation, don't get involved into a dirty political game which may only have a disastrous outcome for all of us. Tell people who are pushing you to contribute to the widening of a schism between the chessplayers that they are doomed to failure in their intrigues, that you have changed your mind on second thoughts, that you had a better judgement. Be a man, Yas, withdraw your letter immediately, repudiate it! Let's collaborate with FIDE, let's help it, let's provide our expertise to it - for the common benefit of all the chessplayers instead of trying to destroy everything! Don't degrade yourself to the level of a cheap and amateurish politico. Gens una sumus.

Yours respectfully, Valery Salov

Enough is enough

Dear Mr. Iljumzhinov,

The purpose of the present open letter is to register my despair and disgust over the current plight of FIDE and to highlight the urgent need for wholesale changes and a fresh start.

No international organization can ever hope to satisfy all of the people all of the time, but the key problem today is infinitely more serious: FIDE is no longer satisfying any of the people any of the time. When did FIDE last take an imaginative, workable initiative that received even a modicum of support from the chess world? When did it last deal with a major issue or event without shooting itself in the foot? Why has it stood by impotently as support and respect for it have evaporated, even amongst its traditional supporters? When did it last show any respect for the prestige of a game which is many centuries old? Above all, why has it allowed itself to become a laughing-stock through its serial incompetence?

The full catalog of disasters in recent years is too grimly familiar to need repeating here....

Credibility is hard won and easily lost. The recent fiascoes involving FIDE have been astonishingly numerous and various. Not all, I concede, are altogether FIDE’s fault. Top chess masters are strong-willed and there will always be disagreements and tensions between players and any governing body. Even so, how on earth has FIDE allowed itself to get caught up in multiple litigation, highly damaging whatever the outcome, with leading players Anatoly Karpov and Zsuzsa Polgar? Was it not your own election pledge to rectify the estrangement of Kasparov from FIDE events? Would it be unfair of me to suggest that besides the players just mentioned, Anand, Kramnik, Shirov, Morozevich and Galliamova are amongst those with angst towards FIDE? Are Champions Jun and Khalifman supportive of FIDE and its policies? For whom, pray tell, is FIDE working?

Your recent manifesto calling for the formation of a for-profit company to monopolize chess events hit an entirely new low...

To quote another prime example, the recent announcement of Tehran as the site for the upcoming FIDE Championship Finals is a travesty which has left me, and many others, barely able to contain our rage...

It surely hasn’t escaped your attention that the reality today is that FIDE is cheapening and destroying almost everything it touches...

Your legacy is all too clear. Never has FIDE been in such chaos. Never has its reputation sunk so low. Never has it been so isolated from reality. Never, in short, has there been a greater or more urgent need for a fresh start...

On a closing, personal note, I stress that I have no ax to grind about the past, or any political ambition for the future. My sole concern remains what is in the interests of chessplayers of all levels throughout the world. The record shows that although I have never hesitated to criticize FIDE when necessary, I have sometimes found myself almost alone among masters and writers in defending it. <Mr. President, it is time for you and your board to step aside.>

On behalf of chess,