Van Barneveld reveals hatred from Fitzmaurice: "He publicly put a bottle of champagne on my head for the person who would beat me"

Raymond van Barneveld became the BDO world champion twice in a row in 1998 and 1999. And that clearly did not please then Master of Ceremonies Martin Fitzmaurice.

Van Barneveld told his story on the podcast The Big Fish. "Before the start of the BDO World Cup in 2000, there was a reception with invited guests and the other participants. Fitzmaurice then publicly put a bottle of champagne on my head for the person who would beat me."

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"That's how big the hatred towards me became," Van Barneveld continued. "You obviously couldn't do this, but he did it anyway. He was also a very special man, for him the mainland didn't really exist and I was the odd duck who had snatched the world title from the British."

First Dutch world champion

Van Barneveld didn't quite know how to deal with that either. "I was the first Dutch world champion and was completely on my own. It wasn't like I could ask other Dutch people how it felt to be treated like that."