The field for the World Cup of Darts consists of 40 countries. The four best-ranked countries will not play during the group stage. England (Luke Humphries and Michael Smith), Wales (Jonny Clayton and Jim Williams), the Netherlands (Michael van Gerwen and Danny Noppert) and Scotland (Peter Wright and Gary Anderson) enter from the second round.
The remaining 36 countries will start in a round-robin system, with the participating countries divided into 12 groups of three countries each. The 12 pool winners advance to the knockout stage.
So the outsiders for the final victory have to get past the group stage first. Northern Ireland's Josh Rock and Brendan Dolan start against South Africa and Switzerland, while host Germany - with Martin Schindler and Gabriel Clemens in the ranks - will battle against New Zealand and Finland. Former tournament winners Damon Heta and Simon Whitlock will go out for their country Australia against Japan and Hong Kong.
All group matches will be played on Thursday 27 June and Friday 28 June. The second round, with the last remaining 16 countries, will compete for a spot in the quarter-finals on Saturday 29 June. These will take place on Sunday afternoon, 30 June. The semi-finals and finals are scheduled for Sunday evening.
I stumbled into the world of darts quite by accident back in 2013. For a Journalism School assignment, I had to produce a live sports report and as it happened, the European Tour event in Veldhoven was the only available option. That weekend, I caught the darts bug. The post-match interviews especially appealed to me, as darts players tend to be much more open and approachable than what you usually see with footballers on television.
After a few detours, I joined Dartsnieuws.com in 2017 as editor-in-chief. I don’t have much competitive experience myself, although I once entered a PDC Development Tour weekend just to experience what it’s like from a player’s perspective. I even managed to win a leg against a Tour Card holder and, quite by accident, earned £50 in prize money.
In 2022, I was also involved in the founding of the TOTO Dart Kings, a commercial darts team, where I worked as media manager for three years. Unfortunately, due to new legislation in the Netherlands, that project came to an end in 2025.
Through my work in darts, I’ve been fortunate to travel to some incredible events, from Premier League nights at Ahoy Rotterdam, to several World Championships, and even the US Darts Masters at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Beyond darts, I’m a passionate sports fan in general. You can always wake me up for a game of tennis or padel, and I love following football, tennis, padel, cycling, Formula 1, and ice skating.