Changes to PDC Order of Merit under discussion confirms Warriner-Little: 'We need to make it fairer with the prize money for the World Championships'

The PDC’s ranking system is under active review following the introduction of a record-breaking £1 million top prize at this year’s World Darts Championship, PDPA president Alan Warriner-Little has confirmed.

Speaking during ITV Sport’s coverage of the World Series Finals on Sunday, Warriner-Little revealed that discussions have already taken place around the implications of the new prize fund, which doubles the winner’s cheque from 2024 and pushes the total purse for the Alexandra Palace showpiece to £5 million.

“It gives us new challenges,” said Warriner-Little, himself a former world number one and a founding member of the Professional Darts Players Association. “Anything like that you think is great, but you have to look into the scenarios that brings up for all the players."

“At this moment in time, we’re looking at the ranking system – there’s no details yet – we had a meeting this weekend actually but we’re looking through that to see what we can do over the next couple of years to make it fairer with that prize money in the World Championship.”

Concerns over distortion of the rankings

The PDC’s Order of Merit has been prize money-based since 2007, operating on a two-year rolling system that currently has Luke Humphries top on just over £1.8 million. With £1 million now available from a single tournament, the winner’s cheque will dwarf every other ranking event on the circuit – raising questions about how representative the system will remain.

Fellow ITV pundit and commentator Chris Mason argued that while the prestige of the Worlds should carry weight, such a seismic jump risks distorting the rankings.

“The PDC, Paddy Power and Sky Sports have all created this opportunity for literally life-changing money,” Mason said. “But it’s going to skew the rankings. You could win that tournament, pretty much not play in anything else, someone else could win pretty much all of the big TV majors and still not be world number one."

“It should carry that prestige, but is it going to affect players for one when they come to defend it? Because you’ll go from the world number one to what? We had the same scenario with Nathan Aspinall, he was number seven in the world and went down to 24th, but he wasn’t the 24th best player in the world, he was top ten.”