“The Premier League is a terrible tournament for darts” - Vincent van der Voort slams prestigious event’s impact on calendar

Vincent van der Voort has strongly criticised the way the PDC darts calendar is structured. According to the former professional, the Premier League Darts in particular creates major problems, with other tournaments forced to work around the eight players involved in the invitational event for a large part of the season.

Van der Voort is also seriously concerned about the growing pressure on young darts players. Speaking to Online Darts, he discussed the packed calendar, a lack of professionalism among some of the top players and the consequences of the constant focus on match averages.

Van der Voort believes players should remain responsible for qualifying for the major televised tournaments themselves. In his view, it would be wrong to give top players automatic access to every major simply because they have been selected for the Premier League.

“Of course, they still have to qualify. It would be different if the Premier League was based on ranking. But now, you can pick somebody. And if you can pick somebody, ‘Oh, you’re in the Premier League, so you’re in all the TV tournaments,’ that is always wrong.”

Although Van der Voort acknowledges that the Premier League has been an enormous commercial success, he believes the tournament has too much influence over the rest of the darts calendar. “The Premier League is a terrible tournament for darts. Commercial-wise and money-wise, it’s the best thing that could have happened to the PDC because they made a lot of money out of it. But because of that, everything else has to move around it for 16 weeks.”

According to Van der Voort, the situation becomes particularly problematic when Premier League players also have to go through qualifiers to reach European Tour events.

He used Michael van Gerwen as an example of someone who could find himself in exactly that position if he falls further down the world rankings. “If Michael, for instance, drops to number 20 in the world, he’s going to be in the Premier League next year. So he has to play qualifiers on the Wednesday. He’s going to play Monday, Tuesday ProTours, Wednesday qualifiers, Thursday the Premier League and then Friday he has to fly to another country to play Friday night. That cannot be good.”

Van der Voort accepts that players themselves are responsible for their position in the world rankings, but believes the calendar should not make situations like that unnecessarily difficult.

“I mean, it’s his problem because he’s dropped to number 20. I get that, but it shouldn’t be the case. If the Premier League could be going to Wednesday, it would be a lot easier.”

According to Van der Voort, the Premier League also restricts the opportunities to introduce new televised tournaments. He pointed to PDC chief executive Matt Porter’s announcement that another TV event will be added to the calendar next year. “You know, it’s going to be very difficult to do it during the Premier League, so it has to be afterwards. So the first four or five months of the year are gone for the Premier League.”

The former professional finds it remarkable that a tournament featuring only eight players can have such an influence on the rest of the sport. “And that’s only for eight players.”

Van der Voort is equally unimpressed by the current Premier League format and believes the PDC should have changed it years ago. “They should have changed it three years ago.”

What he misses most is the variety of the old league format, where particular match-ups occurred less frequently. “For me, it was good that I knew week six I’m going to see those two together and the build-up to it. I really liked that. And now you see too many times the same players play against each other, and that’s not good, I think.”

Van der Voort does not believe there are simply too many darts tournaments. In his view, giving players more opportunities to earn money is a positive thing. “There cannot be too much darts because it’s work for people to make money.”

He does, however, believe the leading players need to be much more considered with their schedules. Rather than entering as many tournaments as possible and then withdrawing at the last minute, he thinks they should make clear decisions beforehand.

“The top players should be more looking at their programme, what they want to play and what not. Now they just say, ‘I’m going to play that,’ and then Wednesday night say, ‘Oh, I’m not going,’ for the Euro Tour.”

Van der Voort sees that as the wrong direction for the sport. “In a way, it’s not professional enough. The players are not professional enough.” According to the Dutchman, players should also account for holidays and family time when putting their schedules together. “Pick your calendar. Say, ‘I’m going to play there, there and there,’ and not drop out at a late moment and do whatever feels like is good, because you have to plan your holiday, your time with family and everything.”

Away from the organisation of professional darts, Van der Voort is also concerned about the development of young players. He believes youngsters are now constantly confronted with their match averages, influencing the way they judge their own performances. “You can see all the averages. So there’s no hiding. You can see the average after the match and I see all the youth players, they wait until they see their average and then decide if they played well, yes or no.”

According to Van der Voort, that risks pushing the main objective of a match into the background. “Even if they lost the match but the average is good, they think, ‘Okay, no problem,’ instead of this is just about winning.”

The former professional believes it is not only the players themselves contributing to that growing pressure, with parents sometimes adding to it as well. He saw several examples during Junior Darts Corporation tournaments in Gibraltar. “I went to Gibraltar. You see the parents are involved. The guy runs up to his parents, ‘I won that match,’ and the parents say, ‘Oh, your average was too low, so it wasn’t that good.’”

Van der Voort believes that can have a significant effect on the confidence of young players. “So they put pressure on it. And themselves, of course, they’re constantly busy with how much average they have and they want to become better.”

Van der Voort fears the growing pressure may also be contributing to cases of dartitis. The condition can leave players struggling to release the dart, making even a normal throwing action extremely difficult.

The former professional was shocked by the number of young players suffering from such problems at one youth tournament. “I saw there were 180 players, or 170 players, minimum of 40 had dartitis last year. That’s far too much. Far too much.”

According to Van der Voort, that underlines the level of mental pressure young darts players can find themselves under. “That means pressure because they can throw everything to the board except the dart. So that’s all in the head.”

He stressed that dartitis does not automatically have to spell the end of a player’s career. Van der Voort has seen several players successfully come through their problems. “You see so many players. It’s all to do with pressure, but they came through it. So that’s a good thing and the youth have to look at that as well. You can overcome it.”

Even so, he believes the sport needs to place far greater emphasis on young players actually enjoying themselves. “It’s a bad thing that there’s so much pressure on youth players because they have to have fun playing darts.”

His experiences at JDC tournaments in Gibraltar left a particularly strong impression. “I went to Gibraltar last year and the year before. Out of the 180, I think four people had fun and the rest were all just so critical on themselves that they forgot to have fun.”

Finally, Van der Voort was asked about recent comments from Barry Hearn. The former PDC chairman believes darts players need to behave more professionally and should not simply take liberties when it comes to skipping tournaments.

Van der Voort agrees with that general message. “I get what Barry Hearn said. The tour players should be more professional and, what I say, pick your calendar. Say, ‘I’m going to play there, there and there,’ and not drop out at a late moment and do whatever feels like is good.”

There was, however, one part of Hearn’s message that Van der Voort disagreed with. Hearn warned that players who skip tournaments should not necessarily expect World Series invitations. “The only comment that I didn’t agree with him was that he said that players have to come or else don’t hold your breath for invites to the World Series.”

According to Van der Voort, that warning does not apply equally to all of the sport’s biggest names. “I don’t think that counts for Littler, Humphries, Michael and Gezzy.”

In Van der Voort’s view, Hearn was therefore effectively directing the message at everybody outside that select group. “He basically said to outside of those four, everybody has to play the tournaments or else you’re not in the World Series.”