The WDF




The WDF = World Darts Federation is the world umbrella organisation of the national dart organisations which is recognised by the PDC.
It was founded in 1976 during the second Unicorn World Championship in London.



14 national organisations were involved:

Belgium
Bermuda
Canada
Denmark
England
Gibraltar
Republic of Ireland
Malta
New Zealand
Scotland
South Africa
Sweden
USA
Wales

The idea to found such an organisation probably developed out of the cooperation of Olly Croft, the then Unicorn chief Stanley Lowy, the Unicorn ambassador Barry Twomlow and the American Tom Fleetwood, founder of the national American organisation ADO and of one of the most important and most popular tournaments of the 1970's to 1990's the NAODT.
All those were involved in the Unicorn World Championship and thought it a good idea to use the presence of the participants and officials for such an enterprise.
Probably it is thanks Tom Fleetwood that the main quarters of the WDF till today is in the USA and that the official currency is the US Dollar.
Olly Croft is till today the secretary general while Tom Fleetwood till his dead was the treasurer. After his death his wife Della took over till her dead early in 2010, by now it is the German Sabine Shanahan.
That Olly Croft still is with such a lot of influence in the WDF is not always positive. Croft doesn´t seem to like any development, changes or renewals and beside this he`s the BDO chief.
The 2007 elected president of the WDF, Roger Price, has a hard time to fight for more independence of the WDF.

Today 64 four countries are member of the WDF, the countries with the most member s are the USA and the Netherlands with both around 50 000 members while England has around 25 000 members.
The WDF and the member countries organise a lot of international, national and regional tournaments, which count for the WDF World Player Ranking.
The WDF organises some Major tournaments. Every second year the World Cup takes place - every time in another country. In the years between the World Cup the America's Cup (American Countries), the Asia Pacific Cup (Asia and South Pacific) and the Europe Cup (European countries) are organised. There exists an own Europe Youth Cup as well. Besides the WDF is involved in the World Masters.
The WDF doesn't organise an own World Championship - the World Championship is organised by the BDO in Lakeside every year in January.

Members of the PDC are not allowed to play in the national teams nor are they allowed to play a WDF Major.

The goals of the WDF are to promote the sport of darts, to introduce it and spread it all over the world, to get official recognition of it as a sport world wide and to get it into the Olympic games. The organisation is non political, non racist and non profit making. Every second year during the World Cup there is a general meeting. In the years between the World Cups the meeting is part of the World Masters.

You can find the WDF homepage here:WDF







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