New qualifying criteria for the PDC European Tour announced

PDC
Monday, 08 January 2024 at 10:00
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The qualification format for the PDC European Tour tournaments is changing in 2024. The biggest change is that now the top-16 players in the world rankings will also automatically qualify for an event.
Thirteen tournaments will be held on the PDC European Tour in 2024. They will take place in Belgium, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. Each event has a prize pool of £175,000 and a field of 48 players.
In past years, the top-16 of the Pro Tour Order of Merit were invited to a Euro Tour tournament. This will be the same in the upcoming season and they will enter the tournament from the second round.
However, the top-16 of the main PDC Order of Merit will also receive an invitation. They will have to start the tournament from the first round. As a result, there are fewer starting spots to be earned in the qualifying tournament for Tour Card holders. This number has been reduced from 24 to only 10 qualifying spots.
In addition, four more starting spots have been set aside for the Host Nation Qualifier. The Scandinavian/Baltic States and Eastern European countries also have one qualifying spot each to share.
The sixteen various qualifiers and the players who qualify for the Euro Tour via the Order of Merit are drawn by random draw for the first round of a Euro Tour tournament. The winner of a first-round match then plays against a player from the top-16 of the Pro Tour ranking.
However, these players must win the match in order for the prize money to count toward the various rankings. The PDC chose this option because otherwise the difference between the top-16 players on the PDC Order of Merit and the remaining players could become too large.