24 players over 2700 ELO will participate in the 2010 European Chess Club Cup. Top rated participant is GM Levon Aronian (2783) who will play on board 1 for MIKA Yerevan. A few days are left before the finalization of the lists, for now a total of 115 GMs, 57 IMs, 40 FMs, and 214 titled players have signed up for the strongest club event of the year, equivalent to the Champions league in football.

The strongest team is the newly formed SOCAR Azerbaijan with average ELO of 2732. Five of their top boards are in the 2700 club - GM Mamedyarov, GM Grischuk, GM Shirov, and GM Radjabov. The team is completed by the ex world champion GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov and the Azeibarjan stars GM Mamedov and GM Safarli

Second seeded is ShSM-64 Moscow with average ELO of 2713. The team features GM Gelfand, GM Karjakin, GM Wang Hao, GM Caruana, GM Grachev, GM Riazantsev, GM Najer, and GM Savchenko.

Economist-SGSEU-1 (GM Eljanov, GM Moiseenko, GM Roiz, GM Tomashevsky, GM Alekseev, GM Andreikin, GM Ni Hua, GM Wang Yue) and SPb Chess Club (GM Ivanchuk, GM Svidler, GM Vitiugov, GM Movsesian, GM Zvjaginsev, GM Efimenko, GM Sakaev, GM Yemelin) are the other two teams with average rating above 2700.

The main part of the Olympic Champion for 2008, Armenia, is participating for the 7th seeded team of Mika Yerevan - GM Aronian, GM Akopian, GM Sargissian, GM Pashikian, GM Petrosian, GM Andriasian, GM Melkumyan, GM Anastasian.

A total of 51 clubs participate in the men section of the European Club Cup in Plovdiv. Not all compositions are complete, expect all details on the official website of the competition.

Photo gallery of the playing venue here