Although the governing body for the sport in England, which had bid unsuccessfully for the 2014 men and women's World Cups that were awarded to The Hague in the Netherlands, has yet to decide whether to proceed with an official bid or not, Munday told insidethegames here today that she is "really keen" to go ahead.

"I need the maths to add up and I'll know more after the beginning of May and we'll probably make a decision roundabout July time," she said.

"As a governing body and an organisation we are fundamentally committed to hosting and bringing the best events to this country.

"It is a key part to our strategic aims where we see that hosting major events will help us grow the profile of the sport and growing the profile of the sport helps us with driving new participants into the game.

"So there is a massive commitment from us to bring major events, what we've got to do is make sure we bring the right event in the right year and we can make sure that the finances add up to be able to make the very most of those events when they come.

"So we understand the timelines but it's just about getting a bit more of the detail of expectations about rights fees and information like that which will ultimately be the information that determines whether we go ahead with our submission or not."

If England does submit a formal bid to host the World Cup at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2018, it will go up against old rivals Australia, who are also bidding along with Belgium and New Zealand.

These nations were among six that expressed an interest in hosting the tournament, with India and Malaysia bidding for the men's tournament.

The next step for interested parties is to attend an FIH one-day workshop in Lausanne on May 7.

Although the bidding process is "competitive" due to the high importance of the Hockey World Cup, Munday says she is confident in England's chances of securing the rights to host the event should it go ahead with the bid.


"It's competitive," she explained to insidethegames.

"There are a lot of countries now that want to host these major events and the World Cup in hockey terms is the jewel in crown outside of the Olympic Games.

"With the countries that we are competing against it's going to be tough and I know that the other nations that are in the mix, if they win it I'm really confident that they would do an amazing job.

"What we need to demonstrate is that we'll do a better job and I think that what we've demonstrated over the last 12-18 months is that there is a real appetite in this country to watch hockey.

"We were the third biggest sport in terms of ticket numbers at the Olympic Games, the television audiences for the sport were absolutely phenomenal, we filled stands from 8.30 in the morning until 10.30 at night.

"So there's no lack of desire to see top level hockey here.

"And one of the great things about bringing a World Cup to somewhere like England, and particularly London, is that we are so multicultural, we have such a fantastic number of people from different countries all over the world that whichever teams actually end up qualifying for the World Cup they are going to have a readymade fanbase here.

"There are tens of thousands of Australians living here, there are tens of thousands of Indians and Pakistani people living here and I think that is a real selling point for us in terms of an audience that really want to come and watch the sport.

"I probably couldn't say exactly what are chances are but we are going to do everything to make sure that we win this event."


Munday also said that the fact that England has already been awarded the 2015 men and women's European Championships, which will take place at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre - formally known as Eton Manor and now the home of the permanent legacy of London 2012 after the Riverbank Arena was disassembled following the end of the Olympics, also works in their favour.

"We are really excited about that, being back at the Olympic Park at the new legacy venue," she added.

"The bids that we are putting into the international federation are for events to follow on off the back of that."

If they bid, England will be the only country focussing exclusively on the female event, with Australia, Belgium and New Zealand all offering to host both men and women's tournaments.

Final bids for the 2018 World Cup have to be submitted by August this year and the FIH will announce all of the event hosts for the period to 2019 on November 8 this year.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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