The EuroHockey Championships will increase to 12-team tournaments in 2027 with the continent’s marquee event taking on an exciting new knock-out format.

It is the biggest change to the format in two decades with an eight-team format deployed for the past 10 editions.

Speaking about change, EuroHockey President Marcos Hofmann says: “To go from eight to 12 is an opportunity for more teams to compete for the title while also bringing a responsibility to perform at this level.

“We are taking our Every Match Matters mantra to the extreme with all games being played on a knock-out basis!”

The decision was confirmed by the EuroHockey board last month, making the move to widen the opportunity to compete in elite international competition. The move will also open further potential qualification avenues to events like the Olympic Games and the World Cup go a wider breadth of teams.

New format in 2027

The expansion will be applied to both the men’s and women’s competitions in the same way with each qualifying side contesting a new-look format.

The sides ranked 5th to 12^th will play a preliminary knock-out match with the winner going through to quarter-finals. The remaining quarter-final places will go to the winners of matches between the losers of that preliminary fixture and the top four ranked nations.

From there, the winners of the quarter-finals advance to the semi-finals and subsequently either the final or bronze medal match.

Quarter-final losers will then play for ranking positions from 5th to 8th. The remaining sides will play for 9th to 12^th positions. This results in each team being ranked from 1^st to 12^th at the end of the Championships based on their performances.

Qualification for 2027

The increase from eight to 12 nations has a significant knock-on effect to the qualification process with extra significance added to events this summer and in the next two years.

The 2027 edition of the EuroHockey Championships will comprise, per gender, of:

·         All eight teams from 2025 EuroHockey Championships (8 nations) in Mönchengladbach, Germany

·         Winner and Runner-Up from 2025 EuroHockey Championship II (2 nations)

·         Winner and Runner-Up from the 2026 EuroHockey Championship Qualifier tournaments (2 nations)

Currently, six men’s and six women’s nations have pre-qualified for the 2025 EuroHockey Championships in Mönchengladbach based on their performances in 2023.

The last two places for that event will be determined at the EuroHockey Championship Qualifier tournaments from August 22nd to 25^th, 2024.

For the men, the qualifiers take place in Vienna, Austria and Dublin, Ireland; the women’s events are in Glasgow, Scotland and Douai, France. The winner of each event will win a golden ticket to the 2025 top tier competition and, by extension, to the 2027 edition.

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** Each national association will be invited in due course to a webinar outlining the new process.