Superstar wants change
Prize money dispute in darts over winning the World Cup
12/15/2025 – 2:54 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
This year the winner of the Darts World Cup will receive a higher sum than ever before. However, this also causes anger.
This year’s winner of the Darts World Championship will receive prize money that is higher than ever before: one million pounds (around 1.15 million euros). But it is precisely because of this amount that there is now trouble. The famous player Michael van Gerwen finds the winnings to be too high and gives reasons for this.
“Mighty Mike”, as he is also called, said in the podcast “Darts Draait Door”: “I don’t think the distribution is that fair. I think that the placement after the winner can never be less than half. The PDC only brags about the prize money.” What van Gerwen means: The runner-up gets 400,000 pounds (around 455,000 euros), which is not half as much. Even if it’s a lot of money.
The Dutchman also said: “The problem later is that the world champion can say that he doesn’t have to take part in almost any other tournament. Whoever that is.” Darts expert Robert Marijanovic also said on “Sport1”: “I think doubling the prize money for the World Cup winner to one million pounds in one step is excessive.”
He also explained: “I would have liked a few intermediate steps because the gap between the World Cup and the other tournaments, especially on the Pro Tour, is widening even further.” This is exactly where Michael van Gerwen’s further criticism comes in.
“Compared to the other tournaments, that’s not justified. To win the World Championship, you definitely have to win 500 Pro Tours. That takes you 20 years,” said the three-time world champion to “Bild”.
The PDC does not understand the critics. Boss Matthew Potter told Sport1: “If someone told you that you had the chance to take part in a tournament and had to play an extra game to win a million pounds, I think it would be hard to complain about that.” No change is planned.