No, it's not the timing that was wrong, it's the seeding of Karpov. The 1997 World Championship was played in Groningen, and the man who won it should be recognized as the 1997 World Champion. Too bad you lost a friendly match in Lausanne, better luck next time. So the first World KO Tournament is history. Here they are, my pre-tournament favorites, whose paths took a different course in Groningen.
Players are certainly happy to play for big bucks, but there certainly are other opinions.
And some of them are plain critical. Even before we packed our bags to go to Groningen the official USCF World Championship Policy was issued and published on the pages of Chess Life. None that I know of. I don't think many of them would have supported the USCF position. Let's look at the World Championship issue from different angles.