Hockey: Wild card for Champions Trophy

FIH is planning to introduce two wild card entries in Champions Trophy from next year. This change will increase the number of teams participating in this event, next to Olympics and World Cup from 6 to 8. This move is also beneficial for the teams like India and Pakistan.

FIH is planning to introduce this system from 2011 or 2012. This information was given by Pakistan Hockey Federation secretary Asif Bajwa to the reporters who had attended the FIH’s competition committee’s meeting in Singapore recently.

“The matter was discussed at the competition’s committee meeting and the committee has now recommended that teams in the Champions Trophy be increased to eight with two wild card entries,” he said.

Both Indian and Pakistan teams have been pushing wild card systems because they are not unable to participate in the event because of their low rankings.

Bajwa said that FIH is also planning a 24 country event from all the four continents.

“The proposal is to have 24 teams from Asia/Oceania, Europe, Panamerica/Africa continents with the tournament continuing between major events like the World Cup or Champions Trophy,” he said.

This move is being done to increase the popularity of sport globally.

These plans will be discussed in the next Executive Board meeting of FIH.

This plan to introduce two wild card entries will be very good for India because it helps FIH to earn good revenues as we saw during the recently held World Cup. Because of good revenues FIH is also planning to allot a tournament to India every year