The International Hockey Federation (FIH) has received new and amended bids for the next editions of its men’s and women’s World Cups after electing to reopen the process.
The FIH has today (Thursday) detailed eight bidding dossiers, from three different continents, after opening up the possibility of bidding for the tournaments across two different time windows – either July 1-17, 2022 or January 13-29, 2023.
For the former time window, the FIH has received single bids for the Women’s World Cup from Germany and Spain, along with a joint bid for the tournament from Spain and the Netherlands. Belgium and Malaysia have entered single bids for the Men’s World Cup.
For the 2023 time window, India has entered a bid for the Men’s World Cup, while bids for the women’s event have been received from Malaysia and New Zealand.
The FIH last month opted to reopen the bidding process after more national associations expressed an interest in hosting the World Cups. The FIH said some of the previous bidders had also decided to change their initial bid to host the other gender event and as a result the process was changed to run until the end of September.
Interested countries had been required to submit their interest by January 31 and indicate whether they would prefer to host a tournament from July 1-17, 2022 or January 13-29, 2023. Before the change in strategy, the FIH had received a bid from Germany to host either the men’s or women’s World Cup during the preferred time window of July 1-17, 2022. Malaysia and Spain had also expressed an interest in hosting the men’s event during this period.
For the preferred time window of January 13-29, 2023, India had submitted a bid for the men’s or women’s World Cup, while New Zealand was bidding for the women’s event. Australia had been interested in staging the 2023 women’s event but withdrew its bid.
FIH chief executive Thierry Weil said today: “It’s great to see that so many national associations and countries want to host our quadrennial flagship events. This is encouraging for the further growth of our sport.”
An FIH Task Force will meet on November 6 to examine all bids and make a recommendation to the Executive Board (EB). The EB will make the final decision on both events’ hosts on November 8 during its next meeting in Lausanne.
The 2018 men’s and women’s World Cups were held in India and England, respectively.
