Romanian
Darts Federation-Official Statement
Regarding the withdrawal of the four players
(Deta Hedman, Lisa Ashton, Lorraine Winstanley and Anastasia Dobromyslova) from
the RIDO 2014 ladies semifinals, the RDF would like to clarify the followings:
1.[size=7] [/size]All details, rules and schedule of the competition were posted on all
organizers sites: WDF, BDO and RDF under Players Information RIDO 2014. On the
second page, it was clearly posted the schedule of the events to be played on
stage and ladies semifinals were not on the schedule. Therefore, we can clearly
state that the four ladies were informed
with at least two months prior to the event about the games to be played
on stage.
2.[size=7] [/size]On August 30, 2014, the RDF officially announced the doubling of prize
money for the Ladies competition. This is one more decision made to demonstrate
the support the RDF gives to ladies darts – and this includes the four players.
The increased number of ladies participants in RIDO 2014 (80 players) was an
extraordinary succes, compared to the previous editions (max 28 players).
3.[size=7] [/size]RIDO 2014 was the first ever RDF televised event live on Eurosport.
Compared to the previous editions, the broadcasting live of ladies final would
have meant an important statement for the ladies game.
4.[size=7] [/size]No player registered to play in the competition express any
dissatisfaction to the RDF until one hour prior to scheduled stage games. On
September 28, 2014 at 17:00 (local time), the four players requested to change
the schedule of the competition, demanding to have the ladies semifinals played
on stage. Because no change could have been done to the announced schedule, the
RDF staff explain the reasoning why changes cannot be performed and tried to
convince the players to play. But their decision was to stop playing in the
competition.
5.[size=7] [/size]RDF sponsors, the public present at the venue and the public watching
the event on tv were extremely dissapointed and dissatisfied because of their
withdrawal.
Based on all of the above arguments, the RDF
requests WDF and BDO to apply sanctions to all four players (Deta Hedman,
Lisa Ashton, Lorraine Winstanley and
Anastasia Dobromyslova) based on WDF and BDO Rules and Regulations.
The RDF decided to suspend all four players
for three years from every international event organized by the Romanian Darts
Federation for bringing the Sport of Darts into disrepute.
Dragos Dumitrescu 1 October 2014
President Romanian Darts Federation