LONDON: An insurgent advert campaign has been launched across London criticizing the Wimbledon tennis tournament’s commercial relationship with Barclays Bank.
Adverts on billboards, bus shelters and the London Underground have been replaced with messages by a group called Brandalism highlighting Barclays’ ties to the fossil fuel industry and arms companies supplying the Israeli military.
One image, featuring a tennis player bleeding on a court, is accompanied by the words: “From Gaza to global warming, we’re making a killing.”
Another of a banker and tennis player shaking hands bears the sentence: “Partners in climate crime and genocide.”
The world-renowned annual tennis event, run by the All England Tennis Club and famed for its grass courts, all-white uniforms and spectators eating strawberries with cream, begins on Monday, with organizers under pressure to sever ties with Barclays, who campaigners accuse of using the tournament to “cover up” its activities.
On Monday, protesters gathered outside the venue, with one telling people queuing for tickets through a megaphone: “We’re here because we want you to know that Barclays, a major sponsor of Wimbledon, must be ostracized.”
One of the protestors, Rafela Fitzhugh, 55, told The Guardian: “Barclays are a massive funder of companies investing in the bombing of Gaza and we are putting pressure on them to stop.
“They’re pumping money into the slaughter of women and children,” she added.
“They only got out of apartheid South Africa when there was enough pressure was put on them and that’s what we’re doing now.”
Another protester held a sign that said: “Wimbledon strawberries tainted with Palestinian blood, courtesy of Barclays.”
Kit Speedwell, a spokesperson from Brandalism, told The Guardian: “Wimbledon’s cherished strawberries and cream image has been thoroughly sullied by its decision to partner with Barclays, the most toxic bank in Europe, while the bank continues to pour millions into the arms trade and fossil fuel companies driving climate chaos.
“Wimbledon must stop providing cover for Barclays’ grotesque lack of morals and immediately end the sponsorship deal.”
Artist Matt Bonner, who worked on the Brandalism campaign, said: “Barclays continues to bankroll fossil fuel companies like Shell and BP, which is why we’re showing Wimbledon that this partnership is an endorsement of the bank’s complicity in climate breakdown. There’s no tennis on a dead planet.”
Another creative, Lindsay Grime, said: “Wimbledon needs to wake up to the fact that Barclays is a totally toxic partner, sullying their tournament by association.”
Grime’s contribution to the campaign is a spoof advert showing money stained with blood falling out of a tennis player’s pocket.
As well as being Europe’s largest financial backer of the fossil fuel industry, Barclays is estimated to hold shares worth about £2 billion ($2.53 billion) in companies supplying the Israeli military.
On Friday, a Barclays spokesperson told The Guardian: “We are proud of our partnership with Wimbledon. Like many other banks, we provide financial services to companies supplying defence products to the UK, NATO and its allies.
“We are also financing an energy sector in transition, including providing $1 trillion of sustainable and transition finance by 2030 to build a cleaner and more secure energy system.”
A spokesperson for the All England Club said: “Our ambition to have a positive impact on the environment is a core part of putting on a successful championships. We know this is one of the defining challenges of our time and we are fully committed to playing our part. Barclays is an important partner of ours and we are working closely with them in a number of areas.”
