The FIH held a successful Hockey World Cup 2018 workshop for the five countries that have expressed an interest in formally bidding for the right to host hockey’s biggest competitions. The aim of the workshop was to introduce the five nations, Australia, England, India, Malaysia and New Zealand, to the bidding process that lies ahead in the next six months. The final decision on who will host the 2018 Hockey World Cups will be made at the Executive Board meeting on November 8, 2013.
The five delegations heard from an expert on the bidding process from the IOC and from FIH Staff members on topics ranging from competitions, marketing, broadcast and sports presentation. The aim of the workshop was to give all the interested countries a chance to obtain as much information as possible involving all areas of event hosting to help them put together the strongest possible bids.
“This is the first time that the FIH has moved ahead with a formal bid process for our biggest property,” said FIH CEO Kelly Fairweather. “This workshop underlines the aim that this process should be a two-way dialogue and partnership between the FIH and the bid nations and should be completely transparent for all the parties.”
The delegations will now return back to their countries to complete their initial bid questionnaires. The deadline for the countries to submit their bids for a Men’s and/or Women’s event is 31st August 2013. The FIH plans to conduct a site visit to each of the bidding nations in September and October. All of the factors will ultimately be reviewed by the Event Evaluation Panel, which will in turn make its recommendation to the Executive Board in November.
In addition to the announcement of the host of the 2018 Hockey World Cups on November 8, all other hosts for top-level FIH events from the 2015-2018 cycle will also be announced at that time.
