oche balboa wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2019 9:36 pm England Darts response

Dear Des & BDO Board of Directors.
 Further to the communication we received on Thursday evening concerning events within the BDO Invitational system, there are several concerns we have.

1. Some events have already taken place following the Invitational table existing rules as of the 1st October 2019
2. The changing of the rules will affect events which are already advertised and published, which includes the awarded categories and prize breakdowns along with entry criteria as per the existing rules.

a) Are the events which have already taken place in the Invitation table of 2019-2020 to be charged retrospectively, or even removal of points allocated should this retrospective payment either withheld or Countries not in a financial position to pay this, due to their commercial budgetary commitments to when these events were held?

b) Or are we to have a two tier Invitation table where events prior to the 1st January 2020, are accepted under the previous regulations in the BDO handbook, and only events held after are subject to the new regulations issue to the countries on Thursday 28th November 2019?

3. England are a responsible organisation, we have due diligence of accessing the viability of our events, and within that parameter, attempting to give our customers (the players) the highest available category in the system, we budget our events to take into account, prize monies, officials costings, upkeep of equipment, and just as important attempting to cover these cost from our sponsors. To change the criteria of the BDO Invitational table after we have done all the above for this year’s events, leaves us with serious financial problems as:

a) Increasing the entry fees of around £3 per event per player, could have a drastic effect on the entries which in turn will make a reduction in profits for the sponsor, with the resulting ongoing problem of securing future deals at a similar package.

b)  Reduction of prize monies then gives us a problem that the advertise Category would then decreased to the level below, and puts us in conflict with our advertised event criteria, especially as some players  have already entered under the original criteria, and possibly organised their hotels and transport to attend the events. If players demand a refund, due to the fact what they purchased (which is a contract between themselves and us by completing the enter fee), is not what they are receiving. Who is responsible for paying this refund?

c) The only other option open to us would be to increase the membership costs to our member counties to around £500; we have no current mandate from our members therefor this is not an option we would consider.

4. Having done the calculations on our (England) events of 2019 this new levy if repeated from 1st Jan, 2020 will result in the England’s accounts, being £9296.00 worse off for the 2020 financial year, this is a serious situation considering we don’t make this amount of profit in any year, resulting in ourselves trading at a loss, and to be quite honest we have not even had a chance to address this in any of the options above.

5. With all the uncertainty surrounding the financial viability or even guarantee of this year’s World Championships taking place, due to the poor current take up of tickets for the O2 how can anyone have any confidence that the 3 or in fact any of the 2020 TV events, will take place.

6. If, however this increase is as you mention in the communication is for the development of IT systems, and not for underpinning future/current event prize funds, we are at a loss to see where the BDO could possibly need this type of potential figure. However, if it is to be used as income to underpin events and/ or current contractual agreements then surely some immediate statement should be forthcoming as to the ongoing viability of the BDO in its present form.

7. The England Directors and our commercial partners need time before we can confirm our commitment to this forthcoming season invitation table. In the case of the Isle of Man we have not this time available as players have, and are already booked for the event under the terms and conditions advertised in conjunction with our contractual agreements with the Isle of Man Government, and we need to advise them immediately on Monday 2nd December, 2019, on this change of policy from the BDO.
8 We would ask that a reconsideration of action taken by the BDO Board of Directors and a reappraisal of the business areas the BDO can confidentially continue with, to save the company be taken ASAP.


9 England are not against the idea that to give BDO Invitation points, should result in a fee, however this fee/fees should have been put in a document to all the countries, for them to consider, and then they could make a commercial decision event by event, with their own national executives.

10 If this was to start from 1st October 2020, we could have, perhaps made some attempts to address these new costs but at this late notice I am currently taking advice from The England Directors and our commercial partners before we can confirm our commitment to this forthcoming seasons invitation table, and to be honest the financial figures within the England Darts Organisation, will make this virtually impossible without affecting our trading accounts for 2020.

Obviously we are mindful that any of our events this year not carrying BDO Invitation points will undoubtedly affect our entry levels, the England executive will have a decision to be made as to whether the loss of participants and their associated entry fees will equal the potential global expected levy of £10,000 we are facing in 2020.

We really don’t know!!!

Perhaps the level of entries and subsequent reduction of participation at our events will result in lesser prize funds for the players at England events, with resulting current contracts being in jeopardy and needing to be re-negotiated at lower levels or discontinued.

Yours Faithfully
Tommy Thompson
Chairman England Darts Organisation Limited

nikkiboy wrote:Paul, you still glad you backed Des for the top job?

Unbelievable but at the same time utterly predictable.

markymark wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:27 am Why did they fall for that line?

Buzz Fledderjohn wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 11:16 am So having been away all weekend and only just catching up, have I got this right? Des, having failed to generate any sponsors (you know, the sponsors he's had lined up for over a year) and realising the cupboard is bare, has decided to keep the good ship BDO afloat by launching some sort of half-arsed Ponzi scheme, only the people at the bottom being shafted have cottoned on to that fact long before those at the top have successfully cashed in?

Ginge wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:31 am I remember at the time when the Fanatics were saying they needed to dig into the business dealings of Roger and then all started crying when someone on here posted a link from Companies House for the company Des is named on

el_ringo wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 12:31 pm You mean when the highly competent EDO representatives failed to do any due diligence on their personally endorsed candidate even though these are all freely available public records ? Lets hope they haven't now checked the last accounts either as it seems the 'multi millionaire' Jackchins failed to make any money in that accounting period as well or indeed again fail to have any assets worth such a 'multi' or 'millionaire' claim.

markymark wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:26 pm Funny point from "The Boss" that the initial thread might have been deleted from Fanatics because the letter was for the public domain and the BDO allow them to use BDO in the Facebook group name. Can't have Steve up before the disciplinary.

Skewball wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:35 pm I think you expect a period when a lot of posts will get removed as the Jacklin's inevitably start to crack down on social media negative posts. Des was of course all for social media openness at the beginning but as things go tits up then, like any dictatorship, he will close down discussion.

devosteve wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 1:09 pm

Bag Carrier wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 10:36 am Dutch open will be about £10k as a rough guess with 5% paid and £2 from every entry.

I have said for years countries should pay to have BDO points, It makes business sense to me, But they have never done this.

Making the £2 levy is the BDO's way of trying to compete with the WDF IMO as I feel there worried about the rumours of the WDF moving in there own direction with events and the Lakeside being touted as the venue and certain people that have left the BDO helping them out.

I can see a boycott on this from countries and it will be the players that have booked up chasing BDO points that will loose out.

The season and rules start from October and so should anything like this.

I see you disagree with the timing but agree with principle of.paying for points. Guess it brings cash in for the BDO.

Is it just the levy or also the 5% you agree with?

oche balboa wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2019 4:30 pm Dont trust Steve Egerton btw.