Belgium and Netherlands as World Cup hosts

The 2026 Men’s and Women’s Field Hockey World Championship will be held as a joint event in the Netherlands and Belgium. This was announced by the Executive Committee of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) on Thursday.

The event will take place in the summer of 2026 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Wavre, Belgium. Both men’s and women’s teams are to be used at both venues.

Both selected countries are great hockey nations: the Netherlands are reigning world champions and Olympic champions for women, while Belgium holds this status for men.

The German Hockey Association (DHB) initially applied to host the competitions, but withdrew the application a few days before the decision was made.

According to the association’s statement last Friday, “after an initial expression of interest in the spring, this was extremely difficult,” but was unavoidable “after an intensive analysis of the framework conditions”.

The DHB now wants to concentrate on hosting the 2023 European Championship, said Niclas Thiel, commercial director of the association. The European Championship will be played in Mönchengladbach from August 18th to 27th next year.

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