"He is not going to be handing back his card. He is not retiring" - More information revealed on Raymond van Barneveld's shock World Seniors announcement

Raymond van Barneveld has been a hot topic in the world of darts for the last few days. The reason? The genuinely surprising announcement that the current PDC Tour Card holder would be crossing the previously forbidden divide, and competing at the upcoming World Seniors Champion of Champions event on the WSDT.

As mentioned, typically, the PDC refuses to allow any of their Tour Card holders compete in any televised event not under their jurisdiction. For that reason, the announcement of Van Barneveld competing on the Seniors Tour has raised a lot of questions such as whether or not 'Barney' is handing back his Tour Card or if he's been given special exemption from the PDC for some reason.

All the information we've had from the powers that be, is a tweet from World Seniors Chairman Jason Francis, who said: "RVB followed the correct procedures and permission was granted. It’s all good.”

Now, former PDC Tour Card holder Matthew Edgar has some more information on the situation. "He is not going to be handing back his card. He is not retiring from the tour," Edgar explains on his YouTube channel. "Yes, he’s mentioned that he wants to wind his career down, which may be why there’s going to be a little bit of a transition coming across here. And from what we can see from Snooker Legends, who are also sort of the owners of the Seniors as well, he asked for permission the right and proper way — and it was granted. So, permission was granted on this occasion."

Edgar is also keen to stress that whilst some might feel Van Barneveld is getting special treatment from the PDC, this isn't a stand alone case. "There have been some cases recently where permission’s been granted in other areas as well," explains Edgar. "Back when I was playing on the tour, you weren’t allowed to play on a stream at home. You weren’t allowed to do live practices. Now, we’re seeing players start to do a lot of live practices, a bit of live streaming, playing on their own. And I know people have asked for that, and they have been given permission to do that as well. So maybe we’re starting to see a bit of a change there."

"One thing we know is this is a DRA-sanctioned event. So the same regulatory body that is in charge or sorts the rules out for the PDC also does for things like the Super Series, I believe, the WDF, and the Seniors. So it’s under the same sort of disciplinary body," he continues. "There’s no affiliation to the PDC, but there is affiliation to the DRA. I said that I think this opens up doors. I do."

"There’s no way this is the end of Van Barneveld moving over to the Seniors, because he’s not going to miss out on those big PDC ranked events. So that just squashes that theory," concludes Edgar. "I think what we’ve got here is a potential opening of the doors, a potential loosening of some of the restrictions that are currently on PDC Tour Card holders. And I think what we’ve got here is a very good and interesting story to follow for the rest of the world of darts. And this is big changes."