Vincent van der Voort has launched a scathing attack on fellow former professional darter Co Stompé, accusing him of lying about the reasons behind Raymond van Barneveld's split with manager Ben de Kok. Van der Voort made the comments during the latest episode of the Darts Draait Door podcast, stating that Stompé "fooled the viewers" during a Viaplay broadcast and was "just making up a story from A to Z."
According to Van der Voort, Stompé claimed that De Kok had sold his company Bengi and therefore could no longer be Van Barneveld's manager, which would also create difficulties for Jeffrey de Zwaan who still worked there. Van der Voort refuted this entirely, saying "none of it adds up." He explained that the split "has nothing at all to do with the sale of the company" and that the contract simply ran until 01/01/2027. Van der Voort attributed the breakup to "some things happened during the UK Open that caused a conflict between them," adding that "that resolution is going nowhere" and "there's definitely still work to do if you want to smooth that over." He also clarified that De Zwaan "has not worked at Bengi BV for some time" and instead "works for Ben de Kok himself."
Van der Voort expressed frustration that Stompé didn't contact the people involved, noting "he has the phone number of all three of them." He suggested Stompé should have said "'I don't know anything about it, I can't comment'" rather than spreading what he called "nonsense." Former Van Barneveld manager Jaco van Bodegom, who was a guest on the podcast, defended Stompé, believing he wanted to protect De Kok and Van Barneveld and even joked that "they should hire him as a newsreader. Then there would be no wars left in the world." Van der Voort, however, didn't share the humor, stating "I find it annoying that someone sits there and just spreads lies."
Stompé has responded to the controversy, telling Sportnieuws.nl that he "did nothing wrong." He insisted that "the new owners had nothing to do with darts and so there was no place or room for Van Barneveld," and that he heard this "from a very reliable source" at the Dutch Open in early February. Stompé said he "wasn't aware then of any conflict between the two" and that the information "wasn't public knowledge either." He explained he made his statements "based on what I knew" during the Viaplay broadcast around the Premier League Darts night in Berlin last Thursday, adding "I got that reason from very close by, almost at the source itself, and that's what I knew. Nothing more. From what I understand now, something else happened between those two afterwards, but I didn't know that."
