Ronnie O’Sullivan has defended his attack on the K2 Leisure Centre hosting snooker’s English Open and claimed that players would rather play for less prize-money if it meant not having to walk past “kids with snorkels and flip-flops” to get to the table.
O’Sullivan drew attention to the venue’s poor conditions on Monday labelling it a “hellhole” which “smelled of urine” and was “demotivating to play in”.
In an interview today, O’Sullivan continued to lament the suboptimal conditions at the Crawley venue revealing players have to walk past hundreds of children just to get to their matches.
“When I was walking through there yesterday, Peter Ebdon was walking through and one old boy shouted ‘Can you stop walking while I’m trying to play bowls’,” the defending champion told Eurosport.
“Peter looked around because he thought he was joking but he was really serious and he went ‘I’m going to start walking through when you are playing snooker’.
“I just thought a top player should not be subjected to one old guy who’s really, really angry.
“You have to go through the main foyer to where the fans and all the members of the leisure centre are, you don’t want to be traipsing through families going swimming with kids with snorkels and flip-flops on and you’re about to play a match or to do a press conference.”
The English Open has moved venue for the third successive year and, while O’Sullivan defeated world no.50 Kurt Maflin in the first round on Friday, it’s the defending champion’s disgust at its new home which has provoked unwanted attention.
“As a player you don’t mind where it is – it helps if it is in Cardiff or a nice city – but actually you spend most of your time at the venue so you just want the facilities at the venue to be right.
“Maybe take some of the prize money out and invest it to make the venue much more suitable for the players.
“Maybe put a bit more money into hiring a whole section of the venue and section it off so it is separate to the locals who come in for their swimming, martial arts, ju-jitsu, athletics and whatever they do here.
“The whole venue is completely spread out so you are asked to go through the foyer of the leisure centre when there are 150 kids running around.”
