The five-times world champion Raymond van Barneveld has announced his immediate retirement from the sport after playing the final Premier League game of his career.
The Dutchman had already been eliminated in Rotterdam before he took to the stage on Thursday but a 7-1 defeat to compatriot Michael van Gerwen convinced him to bring forward his plan to quit at the end of the year.
“Yesterday I don’t know where it came from, I played really bad, I lost 7-1 so today I knew I was relegated and I felt ashamed,” he told Sky Sports.
“Five-time world champion and I was thinking ‘Do I deserve this? I don’t think so’ but it is reality. I’m not good enough.
“For me I’ve made a decision I am done now. I don’t want the pain any more. It’s pain every single week for the last three or four years. I’m OK with this decision. I’m relieved. I’m done.”
The 51-year-old signed off his 210th and last appearance in the competition in some style with his last two trips to the oche seeing him throw 180 and 140.
But there was little mercy from van Gerwen, leader of the PDC Order of Merit, and it confirmed what van Barneveld already knew. “I don’t have the energy to start from scratch again,” he added.
“I can say to myself ‘OK Ray, take some time off’, but there is no time because at the end of the year is the world championship. It is good to see everyone loves you but they don’t have one single clue what I’m going through.”
