The PDC has announced its four wildcards for the 2025 edition of the Premier League.
On the back of a World Championship that was won by Luke Littler, there has been fierce debate as to which quartet of players should join the top four in the PDC Order of Merit.
As expected, Stephen Bunting has been selected having reached the semi-finals at Alexandra Palace and moved into fifth place in the world rankings.
Chris Dobey has also been rewarded for reaching the last four of the World Championship, his standout win being a thrilling 5-3 success over Gerwyn Price.
Despite the Welshman bowing out at that stage of the competition, he has retained his spot in the 17-week tournament which begins in Belfast on February 6.
The fourth and final spot goes to Nathan Aspinall, who bowed out at the quarter-final stage of the recent global event courtesy of defeat to Littler.
The Class of 2025 🎓
— PDC Darts (@OfficialPDC) January 6, 2025
Luke Humphries, Luke Littler, Michael van Gerwen, Rob Cross, Stephen Bunting, Gerwyn Price, Chris Dobey and Nathan Aspinall
All kicking off in Belfast on Feb 6... Let's go ✅
👉 https://t.co/C8DHdQrRUB pic.twitter.com/ZnrMJVwpt1
Was Aspinall fortunate to earn a place?
Aside from his run to the last eight at the World Championship, Aspinall did not progress past the last 16 at any of the other televised ranking majors.
Furthermore, he failed to make the semi-finals of any of the EuroTour events, nor did he reach a single quarter-final on the ProTour.
Of those that missed out, Damon Heta and Dimitri van den Bergh has reason to be the most disappointed, the former sitting in eighth place in the world rankings and the latter the UK Open champion and seventh on the money list for the past 12 months.
Peter Wright's win over Luke Humphries at the World Championship failed to prove pivotal, while fellow former world champion Michael Smith was not in contention having dropped outside of the world's top 16.
Darren Plant
