On Saturday, James Maddison actually showed up at the Darts World Cup, and that revealed once again in a special way how absurd everything is that is going on in London’s Alexandra Palace these days. Maddison is an English national soccer player, employed by Leicester City, and at the same time a passionate darts fan who has already celebrated his goal celebration with a symbolic throw of an arrow. On Saturday there was actually a game in the Premier League for him, but this was canceled because of the Corona situation with opponents Norwich. And now?
Instead of taking a day off, Maddison and his teammates Harvey Barnes, Hamza Choudhury and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall made their way to the “Ally Pally”, to the amusement of the beer-loving audience, emptied his paper cup in one go – and thwarted everyone with his short trip Calls for help from colleagues from the football and darts scene.
There is currently pressure to suspend the competitions because the health risk simply seems incalculable. The process of the Darts World Cup can hardly be surpassed in absurdity, the constant celebration images seem like a bad joke in view of the tense pandemic situation in England with more than 150,000 new corona infections every day. The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), as the organizer of the events, more a company than an association, will probably be happy if the World Cup somehow comes to an end with the final scheduled for Monday evening.
The Darts World Cup in London is pretty absurd
Because when after Christmas one professional after the other had to withdraw because of a positive corona test, it looked as if those responsible around PDC boss Eddie Hearn could throw the most prestigious event in the darts calendar on their ears. Especially the long-time world number one Michael van Gerwen criticized the organizer after his positive case, because of which he had to end the tournament. Van Gerwen raged that the PDC would always claim that they had adhered to the rules of the government, but they could have done “more”. The controls were “not strong enough”: “It’s just a big corona bomb now.”
Similar comments were made by other top executives, including Scots Gary Anderson and Peter Wright. Wright announced that he wanted to “lock himself in” in his rented Airbnb apartment in order to avoid any contact with the outside world. Most of the colleagues, on the other hand, are accommodated in the players’ hotel – sometimes for cost reasons. The generally ostentatious defending champion Gerwyn Price leaned furthest out of the window, who called for “postponing” the World Cup with a post on Instagram.
Shortly afterwards, when he probably became aware of the consequences of his statements, he deleted his contribution again and weakened a possible termination as a “last option”. Despite the lousy headlines, the PDC decided not to comment on the allegations and to sit out the indignation. The organization only underpinned the ambition to continue to want to hold on to the tournament and referred to the implementation of the undoubtedly porous requirements on the part of the government. A negative rapid test or a vaccination or convalescent card is sufficient for the viewer’s admission permit.
A negative test is enough to take part in the Darts World Championship
What else should the PDC have advanced in its defense? It is becoming more and more obvious that holding the World Cup in the currently almost non-restrictive way is irresponsible. To change that, however, the PDC would have been forced to throw a considerable part of its own successful model overboard for this edition.
Because any measure that would have served to limit the spread of the virus – such as a mask requirement or a reduction in capacity – would have had a negative impact on the atmosphere. And the PDC now needs those party pictures of Ally Pally, who is full of 3,000 fans, to refinance the record prize money of more than 15 million pounds – no matter how disturbing the celebration in a pandemic peak may seem to outsiders.
An even worse scenario than a low-mood World Cup would have been a rejection. Those responsible around Eddie Hearn are likely to have been concerned about the various positive tests – Hearn recently took over the sporting event company Matchroom, which holds the full shares in PDC, from father Barry. In fact, despite all the criticism, the damage to the PDC is fairly limited.
Only three games could not take place as planned after Christmas because, in addition to van Gerwen, Vincent van der Voort and Dave Chisnall also tested positive. The equally infected Raymond van Barneveld and Danny Noppert had already left when their tests were positive. In addition, the sometimes high-class encounters and impressive throw combinations were able to cover up some of the downsides of the tournament. Among them was the spectacular defending champion Price against Michael Smith in the quarter-finals – as well as the three perfect appearances by William Borland, Darius Labanauskas and Price: With only nine darts they each set the starting value “501” to “0”.
The PDC is still in danger, even if it can drag the event to the end: the proof that the World Cup has mutated into a super-spreader event for the virus. And what if James Maddison and his three teammates at Leicester City test positive for Corona?