Van Gerwen wants to surpass Barney's number of world titles: 'He won his last one before the war'

Michael van Gerwen was a guest at Omroep Brabant, a local Dutch channel, on Tuesday. He answered a couple of questions from fans.

When the question was asked whether he wanted to catch up with Raymond van Barneveld in terms of world titles, Van Gerwen devalued the performance from his compatriot. For example, the 29-year-old believes that PDC world titles can not be compared with BDO titles. ''People can say 'yes, five world titles', but his last world title dates from before the war and four were in the BDO'', Van Gerwen joked. ''In my opinion that is less strong than the PDC. Those were different times.'' They do count as world titles, but I think it is not comparable. In that case Roland Scholten also became a world champion and Christian Kist too. I think that is different. The real big boys play in the PDC.'' The world number one has indicated several times that he would retire around the age of forty. In the remainder of his career, Van Gerwen wants to surpass Van Barneveld's number of world titles.