EuroHockey League
Introduction
In partnership with Dutch sports marketing company PRO SPORT, the European Hockey Federation has concluded arrangements for a new club competition for men, to start in season 2007/08.
Title
The new competition will be called the Euro Hockey League - although after Round 1 the competition is knock-out, rather than league format (similar to the UEFA Champions League in football).
The competition between the top 24 clubs will be referred to as the Euro Hockey League and below that will be the EuroHockey Trophy, EuroHockey Challenge 1, EuroHockey Challenge 2 and so on, giving every EHF member nation the opportunity to enter teams at the appropriate level.
Format
The top competition - Euro Hockey League - will comprise 24 clubs, with 3 clubs from countries ranked 1-4 in the EHF Ranking Table, 2 from those ranked 5-8 and 1 from those ranked 9-12.
The competition will be played in 5 rounds, over 4 weekends.
Round 1 will comprise 24 clubs playing in 8 pools of 3, at 4 pre-arranged venues (2 separate pools in each venue). Over 3 days each club will play the other two, once. The top 2 clubs in each pool will progress to Round 2. The club finishing third in each pool will be eliminated from that season’s competition.
No clubs from the same country will play in the same pool in Round 1.
In Round 2, the 16 clubs who have qualified from Round 1 will be drawn to play on a knock out basis at 2 venues (decided after the results of Round 1 are known).
The winners of those Round 2 matches will go on, after one rest day, to play Round 3 - the quarter-finals - played at the same venues. The losers in each of Rounds 2 and 3 will be eliminated from that season’s competition.
Round 4 (semi-finals) and Round 5 will be played at 1 venue. For Round 5 the winners of the semi-finals will go on to play the Final, and the losers to play the Bronze medal game (3 v 4).
Dates
For maximum impact in terms of marketing/publicity/TV and media, Round 1 will be played over 2 consecutive weekends during the period the last 2 weeks in October and the first 2 weeks in November (2 venues on each weekend, 2 pools of 3 played at each venue - so each club is involved on only 1 of the two weekends). In 2007 the 2 weekends will be 26-28 October 2007 and 2-4 November 2007.
The precise weekends may need to change from one year to another depending on other sporting/TV fixtures.
Rounds 2 and 3 will be played over the Easter weekend (21-24 March 2008), at 2 venues.
Rounds 4 and 5 (the Final Four) will be played at Whitsun (10-11 May 2008), at a single venue. The matches will follow on from the original knock-out draw.
Further Information
Click on the links to the right of this page or go to the EHL home page to find out more information on this new League including qualification and all the important regulations.