Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
Indian Hockey Team

International Hockey Federation (FIH) has decided to launch Hockey Pro League in January 2019. Both men’and women’s team from around the world will take part in this tournament. According to FIH,  there will be a total of 144 matches in Hockey Pro League and it will be held every year in the first half of the year.

As per the FIH release, “The announcement follows an extremely competitive candidate evaluation process which saw 13 men’s and 12 women’s applications submitted by National Associations.The confirmation of teams follows approval from the FIH Executive Board. Their decision was based on recommendations from the FIH Event Portfolio Implementation Panel (EPIP) who were tasked with assessing each of the candidate applications against defined participation criteria.”

The name of men’s team taking part are, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England/Great Britain, Germany, India, Netherlands, New Zealand and Pakistan.

The name of women’s team that made the final selection are, Argentina, Australia, China, England/Great Britain, Germany, India, Netherlands, New Zealand and USA.

In the men’s League were Ireland, Malaysia and Spain, were not able to qualify while the same in women’s League were Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Japan and Spain women.

According to Jason McCracken, CEO of FIH, this competition is first of it’s kind and will help the sport to grow for many coming years.

Narinder Dhruv Batra, president of FIH said, “The Hockey Pro League represents the first major milestone for the Hockey Revolution. It embodies everything our 10-year strategy aimsto achieve making hockey a global game that inspires the next generation.”

By Naman