Mike De Decker hasn’t taken kindly to his Premier League Darts omission (Image: Getty)
Darts star Mike De Decker has let his feelings be known after being snubbed for the . The eight-player line-up for the 2025 tournament was , with the Belgian thrower being a notable omission.
Luke Littler, 17, was guaranteed a spot after becoming the youngest player ever to at Alexandra Palace last week, as were fellow top four seeds Luke Humphries, Michael van Gerwen and Rob Cross. The remaining optional places were handed to Stephen Bunting, Nathan Aspinall, Chris Dobey and Gerwyn Price.
That made De Decker the first player in the ’s 20-year history to miss out on the line-up despite televised on Sky Sports. The 29-year-old had been tipped to make the cut after he won the World Grand Prix in October.
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His snub divided opinion on social media among darts fans, many feeling a sense of injustice for him. And De Decker has today (January 7) posted one such comment, which called the omission “sickening”, on his story along with a rolling eyes emoji. Per , he’d previously shared a post to his story that read: “Once I don’t give af, there’s literally nothing you can do about it.”
While De Decker’s clear disapproval of the decision is unsurprising, there has been a recurring pattern of major winners missing out on the line-up in recent times. Yet he is the first to suffer that fate after winning one live on Sky.
The Belgian did struggle over the course of the year and disappointed at the World Championship, where he suffered a second round exit to World No. 35 Luke Woodhouse.
De Decker won the World Grand Prix in 2024 (Image: Getty)
Explaining the decision to leave him out, PDC chief executive Matt Porter said: “Mike is an outstanding talent and is someone that undoubtedly we will see in Darts in the future.
“We didn’t feel he was quite ready. There’s a lot of tournaments throughout the year. We’ve seen players in the past, I don’t want to embarrass them by naming them, but players like Danny Noppert, Ross Smith and Andrew Gilding that have won TV tournaments.
“But you have to show that you can compete in the latter stages of TV tournaments on a regular basis. Doing it once is fantastic and is something that you will always have but to really be part of the elite, you have to be doing it on a regular basis over multiple years.”