PDC to introduce major rule change to World Cup of Darts that will come into effect on first night

The World Cup of Darts will have a new look to it when it gets underway on Thursday evening, with the PDC making a significant change to the tournament's format.

The event gets underway in Frankfurt, with 40 nations competing to be crowned world champion.

A total of 36 of the nations - which are each made up of a team of two players - will enter into the first round group stage format. Every group has three nations.

The four top-ranked nations - England, Scotland, Wales and Netherlands - will enter at the second round stage, with Wales the defending champions.

However, they will not be able to call upon Gerwyn Price, who was ruled out due to health issues on the eve of the tournament and replaced by former BDO world finalist Jim Williams.

For all the nations in the tournament, there will be a new format brought in for the 2024 edition.

The singles matches between individual players, which have been organised since the World Cup began, have now been removed entirely.

That means that all the games in the tournament will be doubles matches, meaning the two players from each nation will be involved in every match.

England will be represented at the tournament by world number one Luke Humphries and world number three Michael Smith.

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That means no room for Luke Littler, who is ranked as world number 25. The two highest-ranked players, where applicable for those with PDC affiliation, in the two-year Order of Merit qualify to play for their nations.

Michael van Gerwen is once again involved with the Netherlands, while Portugal's Jose De Sousa, Belgium's Dimitri van den Bergh and Australia's Damon Heta will also hope to impress with their respective countries.

And Singapore's Paul Lim, who turned 70 earlier this year, is back once again, having reached the quarter-final of the World Cup in 2017.

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