Premier League

The Rooster

The Premier League starts next Thursday, and still no confirmation of who Player 7 will be. The rumours recently have been that it will be Barney - if he accepts the offer and conditions made by Hearn. Its assumed Painter will get the place if Barney turns it down - Painter is certainly the players' choice as he's the next highest in the rankings - however Adrian Lewis is also mentioned given his close links to Taylor and Hearn.

Last week the rumour was that things had been sorted and Barney would be announced after the Dutch Open. However, with the furore surrounding that, it was considered best to hold off. Now the plan is, I understand, to annouce player 7 on Wednesday, the day before the event kicks off.

Now comes the first fact of this post regarding who the next player will be:

For those with Sky Digital (dont know about other platforms), you can check details of programmes for the next week. If you go the next Thursday and click the info button regarding the Premier League, it states (so I'm told - I havent checked it myself yet):

The first meeting of the Premier League Darts at King George's Hall in Blackburn. Phil Taylor is the defending champion of an event that also features John Part, Colin Lloyd & Peter Manley.

So there's a surprise! Of course the Sky Planner has had mistakes before, and perhaps the guy who input the details just took his info from last year, although mentioning Taylor as defening champ is obviously correct.

Kingp35

Seems a tad strange to me that they are holding off announcing the seventh player for so long. If I was a bettig man I would put my money on Barney to be that player as entering the Premier League will not affect his BDO position as it is a non ranking event.

As for Part I dont think it will be him and I would that sky just made a mistake. Part stated in an interview that it was costing him far too much money with the amount of flying from Canada and then booking into Hotel rooms that he was doing. He was lucky if he would break even for the tournament so he decided that he didnt want to do it this year. Of course maybe Hearns can still persuade him, who knows.

The Rooster

Apparently the reference to John Part has now been removed!

Kingp35

The Rooster wrote:

Apparently the reference to John Part has now been removed!

Ah makes sense

MBC

I think it would be excellant if Barney was the 7th man, but is it fair on oul Kevin Painter after all he is ranked 7th in the PDC???

The Rooster

It was made clear from the beginning that only the top 5 in the rankings would automatically qualify, and that the two remaining places would be wildcards - so in that sense nothing unfair has happened.

MBC

Barney is Defo the 7th man, he plays the Rocket in his 1st game.

http://www.skysports.com/skysports/article/0,,1-1212072,00.html

Kingp35

No surprises there really but im delighted that it has been confirmed. it will be very interesting to see how Barney fares against the top PDC players.

The Rooster

While the link above still works, if you go to skysports.com, then click on Darts, you'll see that the story has been removed from the headlines! I had heard that an official announcement was to be made at lunchtime on Wednesday - so I dont think sky were supposed to reveal the details yet!

The PL fixtures on the sky website still says Baxter v TBC.

Kingp35

Haha looks like Sky messed it up! Ah well at least we all know who it is