PDC changes controversial rule that will affect Luke Littler and Luke Humphries

The PDC has made a major change to its seeding and qualification rules on the European Tour.

Under the old rules, the seeded players for each event were taken from the Main Order of Merit, but seeds will instead be the top 16 from the Pro Tour Order.

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Seeds from the Main Order of Merit were basically protected from facing strong opponents in the first round of European events.

This meant that the players who compete week-to-week in the floor events, usually ended up with harder draws, and therefore, early exits.

But the PDC want to reward those players in form and ones who are entering tournaments week after week.

So now, the top 16 who qualify through the Pro Tour will be seeded instead.

That will see them take on an unseeded opponent, and the Main Order of Merit plays no part in it.

What impact will that have?

This is great news for players within the Pro Tour that perform well in the floor events.

It is a sign that the PDC want to give more weight to the professionals who aren’t as established as the top players.

This means that certain members of the Main Order of Merit might have to play a few more floor events if they are to keep their seeding for European Pro Tour events.

This should lead to different seeds at each European event, which the organisers hope will lead to more exciting matches, different winners and better events for fans.

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How will European events work now?

There will be a total of 32 players at these events now.

The first 16, and the seeds, will be from the Pro Tour Order of Merit, and they will be numbered based on their world ranking.

So, if Littler or Humphries don’t decide to enter or can’t for a particular reason, the no.1 seed would be the highest ranked player.

17-26 are the Tour Card Holders. Again, with their number based on world ranking.

27-30 are taken from the four Host Nation qualifiers.

31 is the PDCNB qualifier and 32 is the Eastern Europe qualifier.

This is the format that all of the European events will follow now that the PDC have made this change.

The European Tour hasn’t started yet, with the first one scheduled to get going on February 20, and that is the Poland Darts Masters.