"If you're going on there and reading comments from some idiot who's lost a £5 bet" - Matt Porter attempting to take steps in shielding PDC talents from social media hate

The Premier League Darts 2026 has almost been overshadowed by the sheer amount of criticism and hostility surrounding Luke Littler at every event he played. In the end, the 19-year-old had the last laugh as he went on to lift the title but PDC chief executive Matt Porter is not satisfied with this. He has taken steps to try and prevent the hate from continuing.

After clinching a second Premier League title after winning 11-10 in a thrilling final against Luke Humphries, Littler was an emotional state on stage as he spoke after the match, unveiling how much the hate had got to his. He revealed that he considered walking away from the sport due to the amount of hate he had received.

This stemmed from the Premier League night in Manchester. What was supposed to be a glorious night for Littler was instead marred in controversy after a spat with Gian van Veen with both players not happy with each other on stage. The Dutchman won the match and would be cited as the one in the right.

Darts fans were ruthless and cruel, not forgetting Littler's actions on stage and giving him a tough time from then until the O2. A chorus of boos as he walked onto stage was a common theme with the worst coming in Rotterdam with the Dutch fans less than satisfied.

He is not the only one to feel these effects. Stephen Bunting had also been very emotional in press conferences after the darting world did a 360 and put him under the spotlight in a negative picture. From one of the most popular players, 'The Bullet; was regularly getting hate and criticism and was struggling to deal with it.

Speaking on talkSPORT, Porter stated that work was being done in halting this concerning trend and protecting players from a huge amount of stick coming their way. He has held talks with social media platforms over introducing filters to shield and protect the top PDC talents.

"There's no doubt social media is a huge contributing factor to not just darts, but any sports person's mentality at the moment," Porter said. "Everybody deals with it in a different way. I think it can be used in a real positive. You can engage with your fans, you can use it as a platform to promote yourself and your sponsors."

While the positives are great, the negatives overshadow the dark side of it. "But obviously if you're going on there and reading comments from some idiot who's lost a £5 bet and wants all these terrible things to happen to you and your family, then it's not particularly helpful or constructive.

"We've had some conversations with a platform, there's various filter platforms that can come in to place for people with high-profile accounts to help them through that time and make sure they don't see things that can cause ill effects on their mental state.

"I think that's increasingly important, but it's obviously sad that we're in that position where we have to look at that sort of thing."