Ashdown on prize fund for WDF World Championship: "There's going to be a big boost to ladies darts"

The WDF announced their World Championship which will run at the Lakeside with a return to the home of World darts incoming between January 1-9, 2022.

Richard Ashdown, WDF Chief Development Officer in his chat with the Inside the WDF podcast discussed the lack of prize fund announcements as of yet and said it's for good reason.

"There's going to be a big boost to ladies darts in whatever we do. Whether that's a ranking open or a major tournament," he said.

"It's a positive reason. We of course know our budgets but there's still commercial deals on the table. We want to make it as high as possible. We want to make sure the players are earning as much as we can provide. Equally we have to be absolutely certain that the event is sustainable. We know there was issues with that in the recent past. The WDF won't make the same mistake."

The same goes for the World Masters with an announcement coming when it is completely ready.

"That's being negotiated as we speak. I'm not one for spin, we're not a federation that's going to do a lot of watch this space. As soon as everything is confirmed, everyone will know."

Criticism in certain quarters has been levied at the WDF for choosing to start their World Championship on what will traditionally be finals day in the PDC edition or last year the Quarter-Finals.

Ashdown though said it's purely in its normal slot and that there is no sort of agenda involved both in the PDC and the UKDA with the latter running a county weekend during this time.

"The dates that have been chosen are the traditional dates of the Lakeside World Championship. Nothing's changed. They chose the county date to be the second weekend of January, they must know at some point a clash is coming. In terms of the players, I don't think there's an issue.

"There's no overlap there and there's no competition as far as the two events are concerned in our eyes. If the Lakeside World Championship is going to start on the first Saturday of the year, then when the first Saturday of the year is the 1st January, there's inevitably going to be the clash.

"There's no agenda with it, we have to deal with both broadcaster and venue who both want it at the start of the year in its traditional slot."