The FIH Executive Board held its annual spring meeting in Barcelona over the weekend and made progress on several fronts. Most notably the Board backed the operation and marketing plan of the upcoming FIH World League, which has the green light to begin following the London Olympics.
Another key decision was made to formally adopt the Quarterfinal/Semi-Final format at the Champions Trophy and Champions Challenges for future events. The FIH used two different formats at those competitions during the last season and after careful review by the Competitions Committee, it was determined that the Quarterfinal format is the best fit for FIH events. It is the format that was used at the most recent FIH Women’s Champions Trophy held in Rosario, Argentina.
The Board received updates on both Project Brazil and Project India and was pleased with the progress made on both fronts. Project Brazil, with the goal of improving the level of its national team program in time for the Rio 2016 Olympics, has moved ahead nicely. The positive news out of the Brazilian camp is the participation of its men’s national team at the upcoming Olympic Qualifier in Japan which will give the team valuable international experience.
Project India continues to move along in a positive direction and the good news is the qualification of the Indian men’s national team to the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The Board also approved regulations regarding betting and anti-corruption, which also is a key project of the International Olympic Committee. In other Olympic-related news, the qualification process for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games was also approved and will be formalized and communicated after the approval of the IOC executive Board in May this year.
The next FIH Executive Board meeting will be August 9-10 in London during the Olympic Games.
