What happened to the WCC?

Question

Just found this rating list below while looking for other items.

I vaguely remember hearing about WCC.

What happened to them? All I find now for WCC is 'world chess championship'.

Apparently they both rated top players.

Combined Top 100 - January 1999 FIDE and WCC Chess Rating Lists

Note: The 1999 FIDE World Chess rating came late and contained errors. This is the fourth and presumably the final version of the FIDE top 100 list. UPDATE: The Combined rating lists for July 1999 are posted at http://www.gmchess.spb.ru/ratings/july99.html

Rank    Name                    Country FIDE Rating Name                WCC Rating
1       Kasparov, Gary          RUS     2812        Kasparov, Garry     2803
2       Anand, Viswanathan      IND     2781        Anand, Viswanathan  2750
3       Kramnik, Vladimir       RUS     2751        Kramnik, Vladimir   2724
4       Shirov, Alexei          ESP     2726        Shirov, Alexei      2712
5       Morozevich, Alexander   RUS     2723        Kamsky, Gata        2701
6       Adams, Michael          ENG     2716        Leko, Peter         2693
...........

Answer 1

The WCC was the "World Chess Council".

It was formed in 1998 by Kasparov after the collapse of the PCA (Professional Chess Association) in 1995. It was Kasparov's fourth attempt at an organization separate from FIDE.

It organized the candidates match between Kramnik and Shirov in 1998, which Shirov surprisingly won (5.5-3.5), and he was slated to play Kasparov for the title. The match never happened since the organization collapsed during the negotiations when the organization lost its sponsors, and folded.

The best detailing of the events of that time that I have found can be found here. (Note that this outstanding site has many more pages of history, so click the "next" and "previous" buttons at the bottom to read more. I would love to just cut-and-paste it, but it is copyrighted material, so you will have to go visit the site.)

You can also find a little information here.

Answer 2

Based on a similar list found on anusha.com, which is titled

Combined July 1998 FIDE and WCC (PCA) World Chess Rating Lists

This table enables comparison between the official FIDE Rating list and the WCC list (formerly known as the PCA list) developed by Ken Thompson. For example, Anatoly Karpov is ranked number 5 and is rated 2725 on the FIDE list but is ranked only number 8 and rated only 2687 on the WCC list.

it looks like it was a list maintained by the Professional Chess Association which existed as a separate international chess organization besides FIDE between 1993 and 1996.