Lausanne (Switzerland): In a move to standardise playing time, all international matches involving the men and women teams will adopt four quarters of 15 minutes at every levels beginning 1 January, 2017.
The 16–team 2018 Men and Women World Cup to be hosted by India and England respectively will also see several changes to the tournament format and regulations.
These were several decisions under taken by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) during the FIH Executive Board meetings at the Hockey Revolution Part 2 Conference in Dubai in November.
The FIH Competitions Committee recommended changes to the Hockey World Cups, which the FIH Executive Board approved.
With the 2018 Hockey World Cup moving to a 16-team event, changes to the format involves 4 pools with each pool consisting of four teams. The winners of each pool qualify for the quarterfinals.
However, teams placed second and third in each pool will play in the crossover to determine the other four quarter-final teams. The winners of each quarterfinals match will advance to the semi-finals. Ranking of eliminated teams will be based on their performance at the time of elimination.
It was also decided that the 2022 Hockey World Cup would also be a 16-team competition, per gender. As a result, the next two editions of the event can be staged over 16 days which will include three weekends.
Whilst the 15 minutes of each quarter rule was agreed by the FIH Executive Board in November, the ruling could not be implemented at the Men Hockey Junior World Cup that was held from Dec 8-18 in Lucknow, India and the Women Junior World Cup in the Chilean city of Santiago recently as both events were too close to the start of the tournaments. Both competitions were played using the existing Rules of Hockey relating to two halves of 35 minutes.
The 45th FIH Congress in Dubai also saw the election of India’s Dr Narinder Batra as FIH President for a four-year term on 12 November. He replaces predecessor Leandro Negre from Spain who was awarded the title of President of Honour by the FIH.
The FIH Congress also voted five new Ordinary Board Members to the Executive Board – two of them being women. These included Danae Andrada (Uruguay), Hazel Kennedy (Zambia), Dato’ Sri Tayyab Ikram (Macau), Erik Cornelissen (Netherlands) and Michael Green (Germany).
It follows member National Associations’ decision to accept an FIH Executive Board recommendation to change the gender structure of the Board, which sees four men and four women now represented as Ordinary Board Members. Overall, the 15 person Executive Board now features seven women and eight men as FIH continues to ensure women have greater influence in hockey at all levels of the sport.
Five new National Associations – Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Swaziland, Nicaragua and Colombia – were granted full membership by the Congress following substantial development of the sport in those nations in recent years. With an aim of reaching 152 National Associations by 2024, FIH are well on their way to achieving this target, with these nations taking the total membership to 137.
Other matters discussed and approved at the Congress include China hosting the 2018 Women’s Hockey Champions Trophy from November 17-25 at the Wujin Hockey Stadium in Changzhou, near Shanghai.
FIH will also introduce a new Code of Ethics in 2017 and updated anti-corruption regulations, both presented to Member organisations. The new Code will be fully in-line with the new IOC Code of Ethics (2015 version) and cover the areas of conflicts of interest; confidentiality; integrity (including bribery, gifts & hospitality; match-related integrity and betting); elections and bidding for events.
It also foresees the creation of an FIH Ethics Panel with the members to be selected from a pool of independent experts. All FIH members will be provided with a template integrity code, committing them to read the new Code of Ethics and anti-corruption regulations, give them to all staff and ensure full compliance.
Delegates at the Congress were updated by FIH staff on the progress of the Hockey Revolution, Brand Research Project and new Event Portfolio. Simon Cartwright, Adidas Senior Brand Director, provided a lot of engagement with a session on brands while Jenny Mann from the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) Sport Department and Rio 2016 Olympic gold medallist Gonzalo Peillat from Argentina joined National Associations and others for an open discussion regarding the development of hockey in their respective areas.
IOC President Thomas Bach also sent a video message to the Congress reflecting on the success of the Hockey Revolution so far, whilst Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) Executive Director Andrew Ryan updated attendees on governance and the challenges facing sports federations today.
The next FIH Congress will take place in New Delhi, India in 2018.
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