Professional darts players took to social media yesterday to vent frustration over the playing conditions in Rosmalen, where Players Championship Three and Four are currently being played.
The Players Championships, part of the ProTour circuit, are currently underway with Event Three having taken place yesterday (won by Chris Dobey), and Event Four taking place today.
A large percentage of these matches are played in the UK, however, the PDC also schedules some of the events in Holland to be more accessible for professional players based in Europe.
The events are played behind closed doors but are streamed for PDC TV members to watch.
PC3 & PC4 are being played in Rosmalen, Holland, and a number of players have taken to social media yesterday to publicly ‘out’ the playing conditions.
Daryl Gurney, the 2017 World Grand Prix winner and currently ranked 25th in the world, posted the following to his Facebook Page:
“Really disappointed with the playing conditions today in Rosmalen. The venue is freezing, and no consideration of the location for players. A bad decision on the PDC’s behalf and the players deserve better!!!”
He would also tag the PDC in his post.
Since his post, other professional players have also taken to social media to call out the playing conditions with some HEATED phrases being used…
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Mickey Mansell on ‘Unacceptable’ Playing Conditions
Mickey Mansell, another Northern Irish pro and semi-finalist at last year’s Grand Slam of Darts, would also take to social media to criticise the playing conditions as well as the governing bodies of the sport.
In response to the Daryl Gurney post, he added:
“As Professionals Players we shouldn’t be concerned about playing conditions, unfortunately last weekend in Wigan and now this week in Rosmalen isn’t good enough.. Same sh*te PDPA say it’s PDC’s responsibility PDC says it’s the venues responsibility!!”
Justin Pipe, a former professional player, would comment on Mickey’s post to also take aim at the PDPA and directly criticise chairman Peter Manley. He replied:
“Manley is only going through the motions in the PDPA. The man only lines his own pockets and cares sh*t all about the players who are not in the top 10. It’ll never change Mickey, they don’t care enough.”
This is now the second controversial topic surrounding the PDC (publicly) this week.
After crowd whistling and booing on Night 2 of the Premier League last week, they had to release a statement addressing crowd behaviour at their events.
This came after a mass social media outrage with calls for Glasgow to be banned from hosting darts again due to what was described as an ‘embarrassing’ and ‘pathetic’ crowd.
Now, just a few days later they are faced with criticism from their own players over playing conditions.
There’s been no comment on whether the conditions have been improved today as we come close to the conclusion of the event at the time of writing but we’ll keep you posted if anything comes out…
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