Climate activists with Just Stop Oil disrupted the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, England, Monday night by pouring orange powdered paint onto a green-clothed playing table.
The protest was held in the Crucible Theatre while two matches in the first stage of the World Snooker Championship were being played.
Snooker is a cue game, similar to billiards, using a different set of balls and a table with different dimensions.
Fans attending the tournament could be heard on the BBC broadcast expressing their anger at the protesters, with someone yelling “get him off of it” and others calling one protester a “prick” and an “idiot” before the crowd booed.
I’m lost for words pic.twitter.com/Gqf5bKXlUu
— Out Of Context Snooker (@OOCSnooker) April 17, 2023
Protester Edred Whittingham, 25, was able to clamber onto the surface being played on by Robert Milkins and Joe Perry.
Another protester, Margaret Reid, 52, was restrained by referee Olivier Marteel before she could vandalize the table being used by Mark Allen and Fan Zhengyi.
Wow. Boos ring out as a protestor tries to climb the table at the Crucible during Mark Allen v Fan Zhengyi before being dragged off! pic.twitter.com/IfTH3pGXWU
— Chris Hammer (@ChrisHammer180) April 17, 2023
The Allen-Zhengyi match restarted after about 45 minutes, but the Milkins-Perry match was abandoned and will be restarted Tuesday, after the tablecloth was replaced.
“It could have been a lot worse — you saw what happened on the other table and how much disruption it caused. I feel like even talking about it is giving them airtime they don’t deserve because they are just idiots. What are they trying to gain from what they have done?,” Mr. Allen, who went on to win his match, told the Associated Press.
Both protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
Just Stop Oil, which is behind a series of protests on roadways and in museums, demands the end of all new fossil fuel projects in Britain. The group also calls for U.K. sporting organizations to join them in their civil resistance against British authorities. Those who do not join, the group says, are complicit. Monday’s stunt was meant to raise publicity for a march in London on Monday.
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