9 November 2022 Lausanne, Switzerland: The very first edition of the FIH Hockey Nations Cup is almost upon us. The event will begin with the men’s tournament, which will run from 28 November to 4 December in Potchefstroom, South Africa, and will be followed by the women’s tournament which begins on 11 December and runs till 17 December in Valencia, Spain. With highly ranked nations competing, not just for the inaugural title, but also a chance of promotion to the FIH Hockey Pro League, the Nations Cup promises to start off its first season with a bang! Venues The FIH Hockey Men’s Nations Cup will be played in Potchefstroom, South Africa which also hosted the FIH Hockey Women’s Junior World Cup – the first FIH Hockey World Cup played on African soil – and FIH Hockey Pro League matches earlier in the year. The FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup will be played in Valencia, Spain in the Estadio Betero, which has hosted men’s FIH Hockey Pro League matches over the past three years, amongst others. Format The FIH Hockey Nations Cups will be contested between 8 teams in each event. The teams have been split into two Pools of 4. Each team will face the other 3 teams in their Pool in the group stage. At the end of the group stage, all 4 teams will be classified from 1-4 with the top two teams from each pool making it to the semi-finals, and the bottom 2 teams then going forward for the 5-8 classification. The teams finishing in the 3rd place in their Pool will play the 4th placed team in the other Pool. The winning team from these contests will play for the 5th position and the losing teams will play for the 7th position. The teams finishing in the first place in their respective Pools will play the second placed teams in the other pool, in the semi-finals. The winners will then go on to play the finals, while the losing semi-finalists will play for the 3rd position. Promotion The winning teams from the FIH Hockey Nations Cup, men’s and women’s, will be promoted to the FIH Hockey Pro League for the 2023-24 season, where they will replace the teams that finish last in the 2022-23 season of the FIH Hockey Pro League. Teams Men’s Tournament Pool A Hosts South Africa are joined by France, Ireland and Pakistan to make up Pool A, that promises to deliver high-octane attacking hockey. South Africa replaced New Zealand in the FIH Hockey Pro League last season, and while they finished in the bottom place, their team took major steps forward and it showed as they made it all the way to the semi-finals of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. France was the other team to play in the FIH Hockey Pro League in the previous edition, replacing Australia, and produced great hockey, registering impressive wins against India, Argentina and South Africa through the course of the tournament. South Africa and France will also be in action in the FIH Hockey Odisha Men’s World Cup 2023 Bhubaneswar-Rourkela, so they will be highly motivated to put their best foot forward at the Nations Cup, in build-up to the event. On the flip side, Ireland and Pakistan will have their eyes firmly set on the promotion to the FIH Hockey Pro League 2023-24, by winning the Nations Cup. Both Ireland and Pakistan narrowly missed out on World Cup qualification and will be hungry to use the Nations Cup as the platform to re-launch their ascent in hockey world rankings. Pool B Canada joins the Asian triumvirate of Japan, Korea and Malaysia in Pool B that promises to deliver a variety of tactical battles in every game. Canada have been in a transitional phase as a younger generation aims to burst through and make a name for itself in world hockey. Their performances in the Commonwealth Games were never lacking in passion and intensity, as they finished in the 8th place, with their best performance coming in the 7/8 place classification match against Pakistan which they narrowly lost by a score-line of 3-4. Japan, Korea and Malaysia will head to the Nations Cup right after the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup where they have put in some excellent performances already and currently occupy the top three spots in the league table ahead of Pakistan, Egypt and South Africa. All three teams have also qualified for the World Cup in January 2023 and will aim to continue building momentum through the Nations Cup. Women’s Tournament Pool A Hosts Spain will be joined by Korea, Ireland and Italy in Pool A of the FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup. Spain have been on the rise with their young rising stars blending well with the established veterans on the team. They are one of the two teams playing in the Nations Cup after having played in the FIH Hockey Pro League in the previous season, where they had an impressive 5th placed finish, ahead of Germany, England, China and USA. Spain also excelled in the FIH Hockey Women’s World Cup Spain & Netherlands 2022, making it to the quarterfinals, and finishing 7th. Ireland and Korea endured disappointing World Cup campaigns by their usual standards, finishing 11th and 13th respectively. The disappointments at the World Cup will provide plenty motivation for Ireland and Korea to try and win the Nations Cup and get promoted into the FIH Hockey Pro League in the next season. Italy has been a team on the rise over the past year with impressive performances on the continental level. The Nations Cup will provide a big opportunity for them to take their game up a level onto the international stage, and their opponents would do well to not underestimate them! Pool B Pool B is an intriguing mixture of teams who are all on an upward trajectory with Chile and South Africa being joined by Asian giants India and Japan. All 4 teams were involved

Continue Reading →

3 November 2022 Lausanne, Switzerland: Meeting virtually on the eve of the start of the 48th FIH Congress under the chairmanship of FIH Acting President Seif Ahmed, the Executive Board of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) today selected Belgium and the Netherlands to jointly host the 2026 FIH Hockey Women’s and Men’s World Cups simultaneously. The combined event will take place in July or August 2026 in Amsterdam/Amstelveen, Netherlands and Wavre, Belgium, with female and male teams playing in both venues. The proposed format for the match schedule – with one local team, Belgium or the Netherlands, playing each day in order to make sure to fill the venues every day -, the particularly solid financial foundation of this bid – including the support from the host broadcasters – as well as the athletes’ performance and well-being have been instrumental in the EB’s decision. Commenting on the decision, FIH CEO Thierry Weil said: “On behalf of FIH, I would like to thank wholeheartedly all National Associations that submitted a bid. We received excellent proposals and it was therefore a particularly challenging task to decide. We’re very much looking forward to working with the National Associations of the current Women’s and Men’s World and Olympic Champions, the Netherlands and Belgium respectively, that will undoubtedly put together outstanding World Cups!” On a different note, the EB received a comprehensive report on the FIH Finances. Thanks to additional income and reduced expenses, the final operational profit for 2022 is expected to be higher than the 500k CHF budgeted. The FIH Hockey Pro League operational result is also positive by 129k for season 3 (2021-22) and is expected to amount to at least 150k for season 4 (2022-23). For 2023, the budget has been approved by the EB. The expected FIH financial result is an operational profit of 1m CHF (including 150k profit from the FIH Hockey Pro League) thanks, to a large extent, to the upcoming FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup in India. The positive evolution of the FIH Hockey Pro League in financial terms is confirmed by its financial result figures: it started from -750k in 2018 (season 0) and -3.5m in 2019 (season 1) to -124k in season 2, +129k for season 3 and +150k for season 4. Therefore, after two difficult years (2018 and 2019), the Pro League finances remained stable in 2020 and 2021 – despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the cancellation of 35% of the matches! – to 2022 and 2023, where the forecast is, as mentioned above, positive. Furthermore, the EB decided that the publication of the audited accounts will now be done annually – rather than after their approval by the bi-annual Congress as is currently the case – while still being approved by the Congress. The EB also confirmed that the winners of the FIH Hockey Pro League in season 5 (2023/2024) and season 6 (2024/2025) will directly qualify for the 2026 FIH Men’s and Women’s World Cups. If the winner of season 6 is already qualified in season 5, the runner-up in season 6 will be offered the direct qualification place. Since the President of the African Hockey Federation (AfHF), Seif Ahmed, was chairing today’s meeting in his capacity of FIH Acting President, the Acting President of AfHF, Nii Quaye-Kumah (Ghana) attended this FIH EB meeting. The next meeting of the FIH Executive Board will take place on 28 January 2023. The 48th FIH Congress will take place virtually on 4 and 5 November. #HockeyEquals #HockeyInvites For more information about FIH and hockey in general, please download the Watch.Hockey app or follow the FIH social media channels – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – and website.

26 October 2022 Lausanne, Switzerland: The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is delighted to announce the launch of “FIH Hockey Manager”, a game developed by its partner Gold Town Games (GTG) that is available for downloading on Google Play and the Apple App Store, for free! The FIH Hockey Manager game provides hockey fans with various features that allows for them to become the manager of their own hockey team: Personalizing the team’s tactics and winning games against live opponents online Scouting & trading players Building, developing and customizing the team hockey stadium, academy and training facilities Advancing to the top of the global hockey league and competing for tournament prizes Joining a social league with friends to challenge others The FIH Hockey Manager game will provide an opportunity for hockey fans who can take their knowledge of the sport off the field and sharpen their tactical and analytical thinking around the sport in a competitive and exciting format that is easily accessible to all. It’s the first time in its history that FIH launches a mobile game. FIH CEO Thierry Weil expressed his excitement about the launch of the game and said: “The launch of the FIH Hockey Manager game marks another milestone in the expansion of our digital offer for fans. I invite all hockey fans to enjoy playing this exciting game, which is a first of its kind from FIH. I also hope that many other gamers will become new hockey fans, thanks to this opportunity. I’d like to extend our sincerest thanks to our partner Gold Town Games for having developed such a fun, engaging and brilliant game!” Gold Town Games Head of Publishing Thomas Jonasson looks forward to the global reveal: “We have had a great time collaborating with FIH in bringing this product to the market. Without the FIH expert input on the finer nuances of the sport, we would be nowhere close to where the product is at today, in terms of realism and feel. We hope the game will bring lots of fun to hockey fans.” In 2021, FIH signed a 5-year partnership with GTG, a Swedish, publicly listed, mobile game developer and publisher that makes competitive, intuitive and social sport manager games applications. The company currently has three sport manager games available apart from ”FIH Hockey Manager”: one for ice hockey, one for football and an American football title as well. #HockeyEquals #HockeyInvites For more information about FIH and hockey in general, please download the Watch.Hockey app or follow the FIH social media channels – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – and website.

17 October 2022 The International Hockey Federation has revealed the match schedules of both upcoming FIH Indoor Hockey World Cups, Men’s and Women’s. In the 6th edition of the FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup, 12 men’s and 12 women’s national indoor hockey teams will go head-to-head to be crowned indoor hockey world champions between 5-11 February in Pretoria, South Africa. The FIH Women’s Indoor World Cup will begin with Pool A action as hosts South Africa face off against Austria. USA, who have qualified for their second straight appearance at the Indoor World Cup will then take on Australia, who are the only team other than Netherlands, to play in all 6 editions of the Women’s Indoor World cup. Netherlands, who have five consecutive top-2 finishes and are the defending silver medalists, will begin their campaign in the 3rd game of the day, taking on debutants New Zealand. The opening match on day 1 of the FIH Men’s Indoor World Cup will see Australia face off against host nation South Africa in Pool B action. Netherlands and Namibia play in the 4th men’s game of the day to begin the competition in Pool A. Defending champions Austria then play against New Zealand in the 5th men’s match of the opening day, in the quest to retain their title. All 12 teams in each event will play one pool match each day, from the 5th to 9th February. The top-4 teams in each pool will then proceed to the quarter-finals, while the 5th and 6th placed teams will face off in the 9-12 positional play-off games. The full match schedule and the list of officials for the FIH Indoor Hockey World Cup 2023 can be found here. In the Women’s Indoor World Cup, the 12 participating teams have been placed in 2 pools of 6 teams each. Pool A: Netherlands, Austria, Australia, United States, South Africa, New Zealand Pool B: Ukraine, Czech Republic, Namibia, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Canada In the Men’s Indoor World Cup, the 12 participating teams have been placed in 2 pools of 6 teams each. Pool A: Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Namibia, New Zealand Pool B: Iran, Czech Republic, Australia, South Africa, United States, Argentina Argentina men and New Zealand women have qualified for the respective Indoor Hockey World Cups for the first time. Austria are the current Men’s Indoor Hockey World Champions, having defeated Germany in the finals of the 2018 edition. Germany are the current Women’s Indoor Hockey World Champions, getting the better of Netherlands in the finals of the 2018 edition. #FIHProLeague #HockeyEquals #HockeyInvites For more information about FIH and hockey in general, please download the Watch.Hockey app or follow the FIH social media channels – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – and website.