Paul Nicholson on the European Tour

A new European Tour rule change doesn't seem 'right' as darts star fears an unfair knock-on effect for some players

By Paul Nicholson

Darts

Sat March 08, 2025 · 9M ago

The new European Tour season kicks off at the venue of one of Luke Littler's finest moments last season, but Paul Nicholson is concerned about the impact of a new ruling.

It's time for Eurovision

There's only been three editions of the Belgian Darts Open but it's built a huge reputation already and is a fantastic way to kick-off the new European Tour season.

Everyone loved the inaugural event back in 2022 when Dave Chisnall beat Andrew Gilding in the final and the atmosphere that fans create at the Oktoberhallen in Wieze underlines why Belgium is such a hotspot for darts.

Luke Littler made a spectacular start to his European Tour career in Belgium 12 months ago by hitting a nine-darter and beating Rob Cross in the final, so a lot of eyes - as ever - will be on his title defence this weekend.

The success of this event over the past three years is one of the key reasons why they added Antwerp to the calendar last September so now darts fans get to see this wonderful darting nation host two ranking tournaments.

However, in my opinion, the European Tour doesn't go to enough different countries during a year.

Germany will host seven of the 14 European Tour events in 2025 as well as the World Cup, the European Championship and a night of Premier League Darts, while Belgium gets two and Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Netherlands and Switzerland get one each.

Back when the European Tour was formed, PDC Europe used to be called the German Darts Corporation so they obviously wanted to stage most of the events in Germany for organisational reasons. That was completely understandable then.

In more recent times they've started to understand that they need to go to different countries - but there's still plenty of places yet to stage one.

We saw how quickly the tickets were sold for the Polish Darts Masters so it's an absolute no-brainer that Poland deserves a European Tour event at some point soon.
PDC Europe has played it safe so far but we’d love to see countries like France, Croatia and something with an Iberian influence.

If we continue to go to Germany so many times a year, then we won't grow the sport as quickly as we should in Europe.

I know Germany is an easy seller because the audiences are pretty much guaranteed but we want to explore more places. If, and only if the uptake is good enough for crowds, branching out must be tried.

Rule change is not right

Last year there was a lot of criticism about the fairness of a rule change that gave every player ranked in the world's top 16 automatic qualification into every European Tour event in which they wished to participate.

This year I'm frustrated about another new rule which allows a PDC Tour Card holder from a country that hosts a European Tour event on the 2025 calendar to nominate one Home Nation Qualifier for a European Tour event rather than go to the usual Tour Card holder qualifier.

That isn't fair in my honest opinion. I know others who do think this is fair, but I just don’t see it that way.

For example, Karel Sedlacek from the Czech Republic will go to the Home Nation Qualifier in Prague for the Czech Darts Open and that will undoubtedly be easier for him to win than if he went to the Tour Card holder qualifier for that event.

Which one is going to be easier, a bunch of Tour Card holders or a bunch of decent Czech players?

This is nothing against Karel or any other players who will benefit from this rule. This is just about fairness.

These tour card holders could be taking spots away from the local players and I feel this is an unusual move.

It's also not fair on players from countries who don't have a European Tour event.

There's no event staged in Ireland so players like William O'Connor will always have to battle it out in Tour Card qualifying events. He doesn't have any 'home nation passes' so to speak.

The German Tour Card holders will have plenty of Home Nation qualifying events to choose from as well, and that won't sit right with everyone.

This is the basis of unfair isn't it? If any sporting bi-stander was to look at this, they'd say, "Hang on a minute. You're saying that he can go into a home nation qualifier but this guy can't, because he hasn't got an event to do that for."

There'll be blowback when this rule is seen in its full entirety, because there are so many players from different countries who don't receive this advantage and it could have massive implications on the rankings, especially towards the end of the campaign if people lose their Tour Cards based on a small difference in earnings with a player who benefitted.

Or perhaps when it comes to qualifying for major tournaments.

I genuinely think whoever has passed this rule hasn’t thought about all of the players and how it could affect them season wide. It just doesn’t seem right.

That’s my opinion of this at the start of the season. If it proves to be better and more progressive for the players and the overall picture, I will be the first to admit I was wrong.