SPAR South Africa will continue a close relationship with South African hockey after the retail giant was announced as the presenting sponsor of the FIH Hockey Indoor World Cup which will take place in Pretoria in 2023.
The sixth edition of the tournament will see the cream of the world’s men and women indoor players competing for glory at the Heartfelt Arena from February 5 to 11.This will be the first Indoor Hockey World Cup to take place outside Europe.
The sponsorship of the tournament comes on the back of SPAR’s nine-year support of the South African indoor hockey women’s team, while Tops at SPAR continue to grow their backing of the SA men’s team.
SA Hockey President Deon Morgan was elated to welcome SPAR as the presenting partner as SA Hockey looked forward to hosting the best players in the world:
“South African Hockey has realized that we can only achieve by having the right partners in place. We are super proud to once again have SPAR partner with South African Hockey to bring the first ever FIH Hockey Indoor World Cup to African shores.”
SPAR SA chief executive officer Max Oliva was equally delighted to be involved in this fast-paced version of the game.
“SPAR is honoured and excited to be the presenting partner of next year’s FIH Indoor World Cup,” Oliva said.
“For several years SPAR has proudly supported women’s and men’s indoor hockey in South Africa and to be part of the World Cup hosted in South Africa is exciting, especially with the South African teams in the line-up.
“Indoor hockey is skilfully fast and a great spectator sport, so we look forward to welcoming the hockey and sporting fans to Pretoria.”
The men’s and women’s competitions will each be contested by 12 teams, divided into two pools.
The teams will play one pool match each day from February 5 to 9. Thereafter the top four sides in each pool advance to the quarterfinals, while the fifth and sixth-placed teams will face off for positions nine to 12.
The pools are:
Women
- Pool A: Netherlands, Austria, Australia, United States, South Africa, New Zealand
- Pool B: Ukraine, Czech Republic, Namibia, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Canada
Men
- Pool A: Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Kazakhstan, Namibia, New Zealand
- Pool B: Iran, Czech Republic, Australia, South Africa, United States, Argentina
