Air Seychelles welcomes darts champion Raymond Van Barneveld to Seychelles

Air Seychelles, the national airline of the Republic of Seychelles, and Sporting Life Management, today welcomed darts champion Raymond van Barneveld to the Seychelles archipelago for a series of clinics aimed at children and darts enthusiasts.

The Dutch legend, who is considered one of the best darts players in history and has won the World Darts Championship five times, arrived on the main island of Mahé aboard the carrier’s service from Düsseldorf.

Known as “Barney”, he was welcomed by a delegation including Principle Secretary for Youth and Sports Department, Fabien Palmyre, Maja Gedosev, General Manager Sales, Distribution and Corporate Affairs at Air Seychelles; Jeffrey Payet, Manager at Sporting Life, who initiated the visit, and Derek Barbé, General Manager at Savoy Resort and Spa.

After touching down in Seychelles, Raymond took part in a press conference at the Air Seychelles VIP Lounge where it was revealed that he would launch a foundation to promote the development of darts in Seychelles.

Roy Kinnear, Chief Executive Officer of Air Seychelles, said: “We are delighted to welcome Barney, one of the most successful darts players in the world, to our archipelago.

“Air Seychelles is a firm believer that sports are a fantastic tool to help children develop positive values and we are confident this visit will inspire our darts players on the islands.

“We worked closely together with our partners such as Sporting Life and Savoy to make this trip possible and are looking forward to the first clinics taking place.”

For his part the organiser of this event, Jeffrey Payet, the Manager of Sporting Life Management said: “We are happy that Barney accepted our invitation to come to our islands. Barney comes to Seychelles after clinching the World Cup with his partner and World Number 1 Michael van Gerwen last June 4th.  

This is great for Seychelles sports as Barney will launch The Raymond Van Barneveld Foundation.  The objective is to have more people take up darts as a sport and also encourage the young generation to take up sports. 

We hope that this will open doors for the darts community and eventually see local athletes on the world scene.  We thank the sponsors who have made this possible and we wish Barney and Silvia a wonderful stay in our beautiful country.”