Rafael Van Der Vaart To Make Professional Darts Debut

Rafael van der Vaart is set to swap his football boots for a set of 'arrows' as the former Spurs and Real Madrid midfielder makes his professional darts debut at two BDO events in Denmark.

Think of darts in the modern era and it's impossible not to think of Dutch greats Michael van Gerwen and Raymond van Barneveld along with a smorgasbord of others from Netherlands.

Van Gerwen is considered by some as the most talented player to have played the sport, despite the obvious genius of 16 time world champion Phil Taylor, and his continued success shows no sign of letting up.

Van Barneveld remains a fan favourite and a five time world champion himself, despite his waning skills at the age of 51, but will be retiring after next year's World Championships.

There's a hell of a lot of other Dutch players playing in or near the top echelon of the sport and there's no need to worry about who the next superstar from that part of the world in darts will be.

As per Darts News former Spurs midfielder Rafael van der Vaart has decided to enter the BDO Denmark Open and Denmark Masters, being played at the beginning of next month.

Van der Vaart on the list of entries. Image: Dart DDU

Van der Vaart is known to be a big darts fan and has previously entered a pro-am tournament with Van Gerwen in Germany but they lost the final against Max Hopp and actor Jimi Ochsenknecht.

The former footballer's girlfriend Estavana Polman plays handball in Esbjerg where the tournaments are taking place.

Now 36, the former Real Madrid player signed for the football team, Esbjerg fB, in August but he retired just a few months later due to injuries.

He had previously been playing for FC Midtjylland for two years before moving to his final club.

Van der Vaart's former club went through on Tuesday. Image: PA Images

Asked by BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday night about the possibility of two of his former clubs, Spurs and Ajax, meeting in the Champions League final the midfielder said, "I hope so. One of my favourite teams they are going to play the final [if Spurs meet Ajax in semi-finals], so let's hope they can win tomorrow."

If Van der Vaart is even half as good at darts as he was at football then he's got a good chance of making a good career for himself.

Topics: Spurs, Football News, Tottenham Hotspur, Darts, Darts News

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a writer for SPORTbible. He covers all sport from football, formula one, cricket, rugby, tennis, athletics, mma and wrestling. He obviously hates YOUR football team and has no interest in synchronised swimming.

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