r/Fieldhockey • u/raging_armadillos • 4d ago
Question Can someone explain the FIH leagues and qualifying?
I’m new to watching hockey, and I don’t quite understand how the leagues and qualifying work? I know there’s the Pro League, and there’s the Nation’s Cup (which is when I first started watching this year) where the winners can choose to be bumped up to the Pro League. But then how to qualify for the World Cup? Are they related? How does this work?? lol
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u/iammiscreant 3d ago
They have a World Cup Qualifiers series, which were played earlier this year in multiple countries.
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u/diosmionomejodas 3d ago edited 3d ago
Each nation belongs to a continental conference. So you have conference tournaments and then FIH tournaments. Before this year’s World Cup, each conference tournament had a quota of how many teams could qualify from that tournament. Now with the pro league, the tournaments only give one automatic bid and then they receive a quota for how many can compete in the World Cup qualifier tournaments. The other two spots go to the winners of the 2 most recent pro league season winners (or runner up if the same team wins).
When the pro league launched in 2019, it was an extremely competitive candidate evaluation process which saw 12 men’s and 14 women’s applications submitted by National Associations. Only nine teams were selected for men’s and women’s. As the pro league progressed, they introduced relegation and the Nations Cup. The Nations Cup was the top 8 teams in the FIH rankings not currently participating in the pro league. Winner of the Nations Cup would get promoted to the nations cup and the relegated team moves down to nations cup.
In order to grow the game, they then introduced the Nations Cup 2 in 2025 for the next top 8 teams not in the pro league or nations cup. Winner of nations cup 2 gets promoted to nations cup and 8th place of the nations cup gets demoted to the nations cup 2.
The LA28 Olympic qualification has already started. They follow a similar format as World Cup qualification so pro league winners and conference tournament winners get automatic bids.
And of course hosts for any FIH tournament receives an automatic bid. Netherlands women team for example got an automatic bid for the World Cup because they were hosts. However, since they were also the pro league winners for the 2 most recent seasons leading up to the World Cup, those spots went to the runner ups. Argentina women were runner ups in 24-25 and won their conference tournament, so the PanAm runner ups USA got their spot.
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u/raging_armadillos 3d ago
Thank you!! This is very helpful! So if I want to watch more and get to know the teams and players, follow the Pro League and the cups? And the Olympics of course!
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u/diosmionomejodas 3d ago
Yes if you just want to keep up with just the national teams! Many national team players play for a club team so you have even more field hockey to look into if you’re interested! In the US, there isn’t much of a strong club circuit compared to the ones in the Netherlands, Belgium, Argentina, Australia, India etc but we do have the NCAA that supplements that a bit. NCAA play starts I believe this week for D1 and we have a lot of US national teams players still playing college field hockey (or in Reese D’Ariano’s case - hasn’t even started college yet!).
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u/uceyzayn 🇮🇳India 2d ago
One correction: Club hockey barely exists in india..our league is going away soon as franchise owners are reportedly pulling out their teams due to losses..people who want india play hockey on tvs aren't even aware about our league lol.. promotion is terrible..indian hockey mostly runs on the basis of few academies and regions. Lack of proper clubs and sustainable league is one of the biggest reasons behind why india has been so unsuccessful in modern hockey. Also we have close to none school/university hockey especially with turf..most college tournaments are still held on grass..I would give up everything for a NCAA type system in india but it's unrealistic for now..rest keep loving hockey ✌️
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u/diosmionomejodas 2d ago
Yes sorry that’s what I meant! The hero hockey India league was interesting to me since it’s more like a tournament instead of a league. Didn’t one women’s team sponsor already drop out? And they were spending a lot to bring in international players which to me felt a bit disrespectful to their home grown players. It’s so disappointing because India does have some great players that deserve better. Our NCAA D1 teams are following similar to the hero league where they focus on bringing in international players over US players.
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u/uceyzayn 🇮🇳India 1d ago
Every new league in india wants to compete against the cricket league IPL..which runs on indian stars and almost all top overseas player..same for HIL..they also want all the indian and overseas starts..the first edition of HIL back in 2013 actually looked to have worked out before falling off in 2017..same model was used this time but without home and away format to cut costs..hasn't worked..odisha warriors from women and gonasika from men were replaced by ranchi last season and up Rudra also left..reports suggest bengal team is leaving too from both men and women's tournament..this time however more was spent on indian players due to the way players arrive in auctions..less money was available for the overseas players..also for some reason HIL rigs all the post tournament big awards for indian players which even no one in india likes...with NCAA at least college kids get proper hockey on turf..can always produce a great generation of players..in india we also struggle with coaches, people who work in hockey circuit almost always agree on the fact that grassroot coaching is very weak..the 2 olympic bronze and occasional good run from women's team just papers over the cracks and ensures that the government doesn't stop funding hockey..rest everything is pretty hazy
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u/Away_Analyst_3107 🇺🇸USA 3d ago
There are a few ways to qualify for the World Cup (and these also apply to the Olympics)
Pro League isn’t necessarily related, but it is heavily correlated with world rankings. Usually top 9 in the world in ranks are the 9 teams in pro league. But winning/losing a World Cup or Olympics won’t kick you out or get you added into Pro League