Union Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Kiren Rijiju is elated over the 'great news' that India will be hosting the 2023 FIH Hockey Men's World Cup.
Rijiju took to Twitter to write on Friday: "I welcome this great news! 2023 FIH Hockey Men's World Cup will be held in India. 2022 Hockey Women's World Cup in Spain and the Netherlands @theHockeyIndia @rfe_hockey @oranjehockey #HWC2022 #HWC2023@theHockeyIndia @rfe_hockey @oranjehockey #HWC2022 #HWC2023."
The Executive Board of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Friday announced that India will be hosting the Men's Hockey World Cup in 2023.
Spain and Netherlands have been confirmed as the co-hosts for the 2022 FIH Hockey Women's World Cup.
The Men's Hockey World Cup will be played from January 13-29, 2023 while the Women's World Cup will be played from July 1-17, 2022.
The venues for the tournaments will be announced by the host nations.
"FIH has received excellent bids to host these prestigious events. It was, therefore, a difficult choice to make. Since the primary mission of FIH is to grow the sport worldwide - which of course requires to make investments -, the income-generation potential of each bid has played an important role in the decision," FIH CEO Thierry Weil said in an official statement.
The Executive Board also approved the qualification process for both events and they are as follows:
The hosts will qualify automatically for the World Cup (one team) while the winners of the Continental Championships will qualify directly for the competition (five teams).
The remaining ten teams will qualify through a home-and-away play-off. The 20 teams involved in these qualifiers will be determined by Continental quotas, based on the FIH World Rankings at the end of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and the finishing positions of teams in the Continental Championships.
The schedule of the 2022 FIH Hockey Women's World Cup will be as follows:
Preliminary Phase:
- Two preliminary phase pools in the Netherlands (including the Dutch team)
- Two preliminary phase pools in Spain (including the Spsh team)
Quarter-Finals:
- Two crossover matches and two quarter-finals in the Netherlands
- Two crossover matches and two quarter-finals in Spain
The semi-finals, final and third/fourth playoff match would be played in Spain.
( With inputs from ANI )