Gerwyn Price admits he would favour the World Darts Championship being relocated to Saudi Arabia.
The Welshman gave his reaction to recent interview by Matchroom president and former PDC Chairman Barry Hearn – who revealed there has been interest from Saudi Arabia to host the sport’s showpiece event.
The World Championship has been held at London’s Alexandra Palace since 2008, but Hearn has opened to the door to the tournament being held elsewhere in the future.
Hearn said: “I have spoken to the Saudis and they were very keen. But of course there’s no alcohol in Saudi. There will be quite soon. And when it does, the first event they will want to stage in Saudi will be darts.
“It’s a great atmosphere at Ally Pally, but well, we’re looking at it. And we’re going to be very adventurous because we have tremendous demands all around the world for people that want to play in the World Darts Championship from different countries.
“So we’ve got to start looking at making the World Championship bigger. If I went from 96 players to 128 for example, which I can easily do in a heartbeat, it brings in a lot more TV money from different countries. And from the fans point of view, it gives me an extra 25,000 seats. Still nowhere near enough. I could sell a quarter of a million seats for the world championship. I sell 90,000.
“Do I go into the big hall? I think there’s a lot of work, but that would give me 6000 seats. And I’d still be at Ally Pally. Or do I go somewhere else Everyone will say, ‘are you going to take it to Saudi?’ Well, no, don’t be silly. They’re not ready yet, But they won’t be far along. They won’t allow alcohol and the essence of darts is it’s party time, isn’t it? It’s fun as well as great sport.”
Price, who claimed his maiden world title behind closed doors in 2021, has backed the idea of a change of venue, posting on Instagram: ‘Maybe it’s the way forward, less drunken hooligans that aren’t fans, causing fights, that turn up once in a blue moon and spoil/dictates the outcome of the game in what’s the most important event of the year for the players.
‘If you want that atmosphere there’s four months of it with the Premier League. People can still enjoy themselves without alcohol.’
The 39-year-old has only made it beyond the quarter-final stage once in front of a crowd at Ally Pally and famously took to the stage wearing ear defenders during his quarter-final defeat to Gabriel Clemens in the 2022/23 event.
A forgettable BetMGM Premier League campaign for ‘The Iceman’ saw him finish second from bottom in the league table and miss Night 14 through injury, though he did land a nine-darter in Manchester.
Matchroom Sport, whose portfolio includes the PDC, has strengthened its relationship with Saudi Arabia in recent years, staging numerous high-profile boxing events in Riyadh, as well as the inaugural World Masters of Snooker earlier this year.
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