A draw took place in Dordrecht, where the tournament will be staged from October 22 to 30, with the 10 qualified teams spilt into two pools.

The host nation, winners of every edition of the Championships to date, will face Germany, Russia, Turkey and Catalonia in Pool A of the competition.

Catalonia, who are pushing for independence from Spain, have been able to compete in International Korfball Federation (IFK) events since 1997 when the Catalan Korfball Federation was given provisional membership by the governing body.

They became a full member in 2007.

Pool B will see Belgium, who have finished as the runners-up in four of the five editions of the Championship, take on the Czech Republic, England, Portugal and Poland.

The match schedule for the competition is due to be published on June 20, with the event scheduled to be the final edition with just one Championship competition.

It follows a decision at the IKF Congress in Lisbon in 2013 to arrange introduce a new bi-annual format for the Championships, in an effort to accommodate the growth in the number of competing countries.

Both the 2010 and 2014 editions of the tournament featured 16 teams, but the differences in ability between teams and the 10-day length was seen as too long.

The IKF opted to stage this year’s edition with 10 teams to transition to their new format, with the top eight teams at the event due to compete in an A-Championship in 2018.

The bottom two nations will then be place in a B-Championship, with promotion and relegation due to take place under the system.