How the New 12-Team EuroHockey Championships Will Actually Work in London
We knew London 2027 was going bigger. Now we know exactly how the bigger bit works.
EuroHockey has confirmed the format for the first 12-team European Championships, up from eight, for both the men and the women in England next summer. Four pools of three to start. The top six nations on the FIH rankings after the 2026 World Cup are split across Pools A and B, the teams ranked seven to twelve go into Pools C and D.
The knockouts reward the big pools. The quarter-finals cross over like this: A1 v D1, B1 v C1, A2 v B3 and B2 v A3. Win your big pool and your route runs through the smaller pools’ winners. Finish third in A or B and you’re straight into a quarter-final anyway, just a harder one.
The clever bit is what happens underneath. The second and third-placed teams from Pools C and D drop into a Pool E that decides ninth to twelfth, and ninth place isn’t a consolation prize — it carries qualification weight for the next cycle of Euros and FIH events. In a 12-team tournament, the bottom half has something real to play for. That doesn’t always happen.
The event also brings the EuroHockey ID Championships onto the same stage, and the knock-on reshapes the rest of the pyramid too, with Championship II and III moving to late August 2027 and their fields set by the qualifier tournaments in Czechia, Italy and Finland.
First, though, the last two London spots get settled in Rome this week — here’s the qualifier preview. The format only works if the right 12 teams are in it. The current pecking order is on our Rankings page.
