The EuroHockey Championships brings together 16 of the world’s best sides, all vying to become the continental champion next week in Mönchengladbach.

On the men’s side, it features the top five nations in the world rankings while six of the top 11 women’s sides are in action, showing the quality of hockey set to be on display.

While being on the podium at the SparkassenPark is the obvious target, the event also carries wider importance on a number of fronts.

World Cup qualification

The EuroHockey Championships is qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup with the highest finishing team in Mönchengladbach not already qualified earning a ticket to the showpiece event next year.

As co-hosts, the Netherlands and Belgium are already pre-qualified and they will be joined by Germany’s women and Spain’s men who qualified via the FIH Pro League.

That leaves one spot for each gender for the best performing sides outside of those teams mentioned above, no matter if they finish first, second, third or fourth.

All of the other four teams will be destined for the FIH World Cup qualifiers which take place in March 2026. There, they will be joined by the sides who qualified via last week’s EuroHockey Championship II events, namely the men from Wales, Ireland and Scotland and the women from Italy, Wales, Austria and Switzerland.

Event format

EHC 2025 will be played in the same format as deployed since 2005 with two groups of four with the top two advancing to the semi-finals. The bottom two will play in Pool C for rankings fifth to eighth.

 Ranking in the pools at the EHC 2025 will be done as follows:

• Points
• Matches won
• Goal difference
• Goals for
• Result between teams
• Field goals scored
• Still equal? > Shoot-outs

The competition will expand to a 12-team format in 2027 in London. This change has a knock-on effect that there will be no relegation from Pool C this year.

All eight teams per gender are already qualified for the EHC 2027. The men from Wales and Ireland and the women from Italy and Wales have also qualified for the EHC 2027 as ninth and tenth teams per gender due to their results in EHC II 2025.

The last two remaining spots for the EHC 2027 will follow from the EuroHockey Championship qualifiers in July 2026.