Luke Littler was not eligible to be selected in England’s World Cup of Darts squad for the 2024 event.
The 17-year-old has taken the darting world by storm since his run to the final of the 2024 World Championship, where he lost 7-4 to Luke Humphries.
In his next tournament, Littler then won the Bahrain Darts Masters, and won his first-ever Players Championship title at Players Championship 1.
‘The Nuke’ has since won his maiden Premier League title – the biggest accolade of his career to date. He won five separate nights in the league phase, before securing victory over Luke Humphries in the grand final.
But he cannot play in the upcoming World Cup of Darts – a pairs event that will be contested between 40 nations in Frankfurt – due to a PDC rule.
Humphries, who is the current world number one, and 2023 World Championship winner Michael Smith have been selected to play for England, with the tournament beginning on Thursday.
The event is held every year, with the two players from each country that are ranked highest on the two-year PDC Order of Merit selected for their respective countries.
Behind Humphries, Smith is the next highest-ranked English player at number three.
Littler, meanwhile, is ranked in 25th place, largely due to the fact that, while other players in the rankings have two years’ worth of prize money to defend, the 17-year-old had just £2,500 in the bank before his World Championship run six months ago.
Were Littler to qualify for next year’s event, he would need to overtake a host of players in the Order of Merit. Those players include James Wade, Stephen Bunting, Joe Cullen, Rob Cross, Nathan Aspinall and Smith.
‘The Nuke’ has an advantage in this regard as, given the rankings are based on a two-year system, Littler is not defending any prize money at this year’s World Championship – where the highest amounts of prize money are given out.
But he will likely need another deep run in order to get into contention for the World Cup, as he trails Smith – who will be defending the £500,000 he won at Alexandra Palace in 2023 – by a sum of over £700,000.