The next FIH Men’s World Cup will be held from 13th January 2023 to 29th January 2023 and as per the FIH (International Hockey Federation) executive board India will be the host for the World Cup, as decided in the annual meeting held in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Additionally, the Women’s World Cup that will take place from 1st July 2022 to 17th July 2022 will be co-hosted by two countries, namely, Netherlands and Spain.
Thought the venue (cities) are still to be announced by India, it was told that the upcoming World Cup will follow the same format of the 2018 World Cup.
This will be the 4th time that India will get the opportunity to host Men’s Hockey World Cup making it a world record. Previously India was the host in the years 1982, 2010, and 2018 in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bhubaneswar respectively. Netherland ranks second with being host of 2 men World Cup tournaments.
Apart from India, Malaysia and Belgium also bade for hosting the World Cup of 2023.
Thierry Weil, CEO FIH said ‘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’.
In the meeting that decided the hosts of the World Cup also decided the qualification process for the said event. The host will not have to compete to qualify, secondly, the five nations which won the Continental Championship will also be qualified automatically. Lastly, the 10 teams that will remain will qualify on the basis of home and away play offs.
Besides hosting the 4th World Cup India has hosted some other prestigious tournaments as well, which includes, 2016’s FIH Junior Men’s World Cup, 2014’s FIH Champions Trophy, latest Olympic Qualifiers for FIH Hockey, and 2017’s FIH Hockey World League Finals.
Mohammed Mushtaque Ahmad, President, Hockey India said, ‘We are all very delighted to have won the bid to host the 2023 Men’s Hockey World Cup. When we had made the bid, we wanted to give our country another reason to celebrate 75 years of independence adding to that the fact that our last win was registered in 1975, and what better way to celebrate than to witness a pinnacle global event of our national sport on our soil. After having hosted the 14th edition of the Men’s Hockey World Cup in 2018 which was recognised as one of the best hockey events ever, we were confident that we can host another Men’s Hockey World Cup’.
He added, ’We have the opportunity to use last year’s experience to organise an even better Men’s Hockey World Cup in 2023.’
