Sports
PDC Post Statement After Nathan Aspinall’s Comments About Saudi Crowd
The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) have released a statement after Nathan Aspinall’s eye-opening comments about the crowd at the Saudi Arabia Darts Masters.
The competition, which saw eight PDC representatives and eight Asian representatives take part, was the first PDC event to be staged in Saudi Arabia.
The two-day tournament was won by Luke Littler, who received £30,000 for his efforts. The back-to-back World Champion was imperious throughout as he defeated Paul Lim, Gian Van Veen and Gerwyn Price before overcoming Michael van Gerwen 8-5 in the final.
Nathan Aspinall was one of the eight PDC representatives in Saudi Arabia and he kick-started his campaign with a comfortable victory over Lourence Ilagan. After the match, Aspinall questioned the atmosphere at the venue and whether those in the crowd really wanted to be there. He said:
“I don’t know. There is definitely a long way to go. It’s certainly different. I am not stupid, I feel like they were not all there off their own accord shall we say. It was quite a small venue but you’ve got to start somewhere.
“Everything needs to start somewhere and as long as people walk away from this week and say, ‘we really enjoyed the darts’ and the Saudi Arabian press really enjoy the darts there is no reason why not. I’ve enjoyed my time out here so far, there is worse places to be. I could be sat in Glossop in the snow, so hopefully we can be back again.”
Aspinall’s comments caused quite a stir on social media. The PDC have now issued a statement reacting to them. They said, per the Telegraph:
“Nathan was reflecting on the fact that this was a first-of-its-kind darts event in the region, with many attendees experiencing live darts for the first time.
“As with any new market, the atmosphere and crowd make-up can differ from long-established darts events such as those in the UK and Europe. All spectators attended as ticket holders or guests, and we were delighted to see such strong interest in the PDC’s debut in Saudi Arabia.”
Aspinall appeared to make a U-turn about the crowd after beating Hong Kong star Man Lok Leung in the semi-finals. He said, per the Mirror: “That crowd there were really good. They got involved at the end there and I think that every game that comes on stage, they’re learning. That was fun and can’t wait to get back up there.”
Aspinall was defeated by Van Gerwen in the semi-finals. His attention will now turn to the Winmau World Masters, which starts on Thuesday January 29 and comes to an end on Sunday February 1.
