ISLAMABAD, Nov 11 (APP):To further boost the development of the game globally, the International Hockey Federation (FIH) has decided to hold a FIH Hockey5s World Cup, with an inaugural edition planned for 2023.
This was decided in the FIH Executive Board held last week which was chaired by its President Dr Narinder Dhruv Batra, at Lausanne, Switzerland, a press release said.
The Continental Hockey5s tournaments would be organized and act as qualifiers. 16 teams per gender would take part in the first FIH Hockey5s World Cup.
The EB also selected India to host the 2023 FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup (January 13-29, 2023) and Spain and the Netherlands to cohost the 2022 FIH Hockey Women’s World Cup (July 1 to 17, 2022).
To promote competition between teams from different continents every year, FIH would launch an annual event in 2021 for the highest ranked teams not competing in the FIH Hockey Pro League.
It would be an 8-team tournament in a single venue for each gender. The competing teams would be invited based on the FIH World Rankings at the end of the previous year’s FIH Hockey Pro League.
From 2022, the FIH Intercontinental Cup champion would be promoted to the following year’s FIH Pro League to replace the bottom team who will be relegated.
The EB also received a detailed report on season 2019 and the ongoing preparations for the second season of the FIH Hockey Pro League, which will start on January 11, 2020 with the 2019 Women’s League winners, the Netherlands, playing China away.
The EB expressed its full satisfaction with the format of the recently completed FIH Hockey Olympic qualifiers and outlined the great moments of hockey.
As announced by the EB in March, the FIH would launch a new match-based FIH World Rankings system on January 1, 2020. The next EB meeting would take place on March 13 and 14 in Lausanne.