WORLD OF SPORT

Football shirts banned at snooker championship

The snooker World Championship got under way yesterday as the tournament enforced a new ban on spectators wearing football shirts while watching the action. World Snooker announced ahead of the event that fans in “sportswear or team sport shirts” would be denied entry to the Crucible at Sheffield in England. Coventry City supporter Brian Wright has been a front-row regular at snooker’s blue riband tournament for almost 30 years and has become well known for his array of retro shirts that are often seen behind the players on television. He arrived in a Coventry shirt yesterday at the event in Yorkshire but was told by tournament director Mike Ganley he would need to change to be allowed to watch defending champion Mark Selby play Joe Perry in the opening match of the tournament. Anticipating that would be the case, Wright had brought a button-up sky-blue-andwhite striped shirt with him, and the 48-year-old was allowed in to watch the snooker after changing. On the eve of the tournament, five-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan had described the ban as “quite laughable”.

Europa League trophy stolen and then found

The Europa League trophy was stolen after being displayed at a publicity event in Mexico, only to be recovered a few hours later, authorities in the state of Guanajuato said yesterday. The trophy had been on display at the football stadium in the city of Leon on Friday night, only to be taken from a car after the event. “We recovered the Cup after receiving information that it had been stolen from the car transporting it,” said a post on the Twitter account of the Guanajuato public prosecutor, alongside a picture of the trophy in a case. No other information was given about who took the trophy, where it was found or whether any perpetrators had been identified. The event had been organised by one of European football governing body Uefa’s sponsors.

Rodgers makes move to ownership in the NBA

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has purchased an ownership stake in basketball’s Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA team announced. Rodgers was named a limited partner in the ownership team in an announcement made by the Bucks during their first round play-off contest Friday night against the Boston Celtics. Rodgers is the only active NFL player to be part owner of an NBA team, the Bucks announcement stated.