This year’s Wimbledon Championships will clash with the general election, as the public takes to the polling booths on the first Thursday of the tournament.
The All England Club has now outlined their political guidelines ahead of the election, explaining whether it will cause problems for organisers.
They will also be continuing a ban on spectators bringing in specific flags.
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It’s already set to be a packed summer with the Olympics, the Euros and, of course, Wimbledon. And things became even more jam-packed when a general election was called for July 4, clashing with the latter two major sporting events.
The All England Club has now confirmed that the election will not affect the tournament, though they said there would be no political campaigning allowed to take place on site. “Obviously the election is taking place during The Championships,” All England Club Chair Executive Sally Bolton said on Thursday.
“We’ve had a look through all of our operations and we don’t believe there will be any operational impact of the election taking place that day. There’s still a chance for people to register for a postal vote in terms of those of us that might be working very long days at The Championships. But no, there’s no political campaigning on site.”
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Although campaigning is not allowed, Bolton confirmed that spectators would be allowed to enter the grounds if they were wearing party badges. “Yes. So our entry conditions are all focused around disturbing other people’s enjoyment of the tennis,” she explained.
“So we don’t object to you wearing such things but if you’re creating a disturbance, that’s when we would address it.” There are still some restrictions in place related to other issues.
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The club previously banned spectators from bringing Russian and Belarusian flags into the grounds in response to the war in Ukraine and this rule will remain. But no other country’s flags have been added to the list despite other conflicts taking place.
The Chief Executive clarified: “That [the Russian and Belarusian flag ban] remains in place, yes. No we haven’t made any changes to that policy. There’s obviously a restriction to the size of the flags you can bring in.”