Lausanne: India is among the five countries which have bid for the 2018 Hockey World Cup.
Four official proposals to host the men's World Cup have been made, with a further three submissions made for the women's cup. The national associations of Australia, England, India, Malaysia, and New Zealand have all put strong cases forward in an attempt to lure the sport's top properties to their territory.
India earlier hosted the men's World Cup in 2010 (New Delhi) and 1982 (Bombay).
"The International Hockey Federation (FIH) is delighted to announce that it has received seven high quality bids from five nations who are all vying for the chance to host hockey's marquee events," said the FIH in a statement Tuesday.
As part of the bidding process, the FIH requested that official bid questionnaires were submitted before the Aug 31 deadline. The FIH received submissions from five of the original six nations that initially expressed interest earlier in the year.
The next phase of the process will feature the detailed evaluation of each bid which will be followed by further discussions and clarifications with associations as well as site visits to each country. The final decision will rest with the FIH Executive Board with the winning bids being announced Nov 7.
The bids received for the World Cups are part of the new event assignment process which was launched and presented to the Nntional associations at the FIH Congress in November 2012. The re-structured bidding process will ensure that all unallocated events for the 2015-2018 period will be assigned before the end of this year.
A total of 20 events between 2015 and 2018, as well as the men's and women's Indoor World Cups 2019, will be assigned from 54 bids submitted to the FIH for assessment.
Both the men's and women's World Cup in 2018 will feature an increased 16-nation field of participants. The next joint World Cup takes place next year in The Hague, Netherlands featuring twelve men's and as many women's teams.
