Luke Littler withdraws from tournament hours before Premier League Darts night

Luke Littler has withdrawn from this weekend’s European Darts Grand Prix having vowed not to return to Germany until October. The reigning champion has had to deal and has opted against competing.

His decision to back out of the tournament has not come as a surprise. He was met with boos when the came to Berlin recently. He then endured a similar fan reaction in Munich for the German Darts Grand Prix last month.

Littler will be the only player inside the top 20 who won't compete in the European Darts Grand Prix, which takes place in Sindelfingen from May 2-4, and claims he's "glad" that he won't have to head back to Germany until he takes part in the European Championship.

He went on social media to express his displeasure after the recent event and said: “Shouldn't have been in Munich but had to play anyway. Next one in Germany for me is Dortmund and I am glad to say that."

If Littler does stick by his word then he will miss the World Cup of Darts, which is due to take place in Germany in June. That would also impact on , who was expecting to team up with the teenage sensation.

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Littler's immediate focus will be on Thursday night's Premier League outing with Birmingham this week's venue. Last week the teenager was beaten in an epic by Michael van Gerwen, who won their match on the final leg, before Gerwyn Price claimed victory on the night.

Littler is still sitting pretty in the Premier League table, leading the eight-man pack having won four of then nights so far. He leads Luke Humphries by six points whilst Stephen Bunting props up the table and will face Littler first up in Birmingham - and has claimed he won't mock the fan.

Bunting, himself from St Helens and a Liverpool fan, has said: "I don't want to wind him up too much because I've got him that first game! I'll probably leave it until after the game and hopefully I can get a result against them but he's such a fantastic player, he's brought a new breath of air to darts and you see it now with the demographic of the fans that are following our sport.

"He's brought it right down to young kids getting involved. I've done a bullseye math session the other day and the teacher at the start of the session asked how many people had picked up darts.

"This was an age group of between eight and nine and everyone - apart from one person - had picked up a set of darts, so it goes to show how far our sport's come in such a little time."