Hearn believes darts will be one of the first sports to restart fully after Coronavirus: "There's a big hope"

Barry Hearn, chairman of the PDC Darts as well as the WST (World Snooker Tour) has revealed that he believes both darts and snooker will be the first sports to emerge from the Coronavirus lockdown back to normal.

Hearn said in an interview with Sky Sports that they have the social distancing aspect on their side and that there has already been wheels in motion regarding a plan to get proceedings back to normal so he is optimistic.

"Well there's a big hope," said Hearn. "We have one big advantage is that we can play, for example darts and snooker, within social distancing rules.

"We don't need to be within two metres. It's quite straightforward, so if you're looking for a sport to come out of this transitional period, as we ease the lockdown over a period of time, I would imagine that snooker and darts will be two of the earliest sports that can come back with some real sporting action."

"I think snooker and darts will be the first to come out and we're preparing papers for government at the moment to say - this is plan A, but we then move to plan B, which is perhaps limited audiences, and then plan C, the land of milk and honey, back to normal," said Hearn.

"But it's going to take time and we have to do what's right within government guidelines. We have to listen, we have to learn and we have to follow the rules that our leaders dictate. We're very happy to do that, but we will be creative, because our sports are self-employed people - the same with boxers - they need to be in action to earn their money.