PDC Europe hoping to run 'five or six' European Tour tournaments this season

Due to the Coronavirus pandemic still playing a major part in day-to-day life, the European Tour has been a major casualty once more with no tournaments played as of yet this year.

It was a similar situation last time out but for PDC Europe president, Werner Von Moltke, he is hopeful that there will be some solution and that at least five or six tournaments will be ran at some point.

"We hope that we can say anything the beginning of June because there should be some governmental announcement at the end of May. We are praying and hoping but it's not very optimistic. We can run our first tournaments in August, another scenario says we will start in let's say September and October," said Von Moltke to Online Darts.

"The worst case scenario also we are prepared that everything might only start next year."

"Realistically I think maybe we can run five or six more events in continental Europe, just European Tour. We are eager and willing and very positive that we will run all major TV events."

Another part of that is European Championship qualification and if worst comes to worst, a Super Series qualification could be needed.

"We are already in discussions, we are looking at plans but we might be looking at a solution running or coming out from the Super Series played in Continental Europe."

Future regions for expansion

A lot has been made of the expansion of the European Tour with the emergence of talents such as Jose de Sousa and Krzysztof Ratajski meaning the desire is there for tournaments further afield.

It is something PDC Europe are considering and are looking into plans to stage tournaments in different countries alongside their current output in Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Austria.

"We are prepared. We've been international already but we plan to stage events in Hungary, Czech Republic still in this year and in 2022. We want to stay in the countries we have been such as Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic and Hungary but we are also looking into other countries, potential candidates are Italy, Spain, Poland and Switzerland."

"Also we want to be prepared in case we can't run tournaments in Germany due to the pandemic situation that we might run them elsewhere."

"We are already in talks with people in Portugal, Croatia just to be totally honest we haven't thought about it, we haven't spoken but could also be a potential candidate."