Pakistan, which has won the Asia Cup thrice will not participate in the 2025 Asia Cup in Bihar. The Pakistan Hockey Federation said that they are doing it citing security reasons in the wake of the recent tensions with India and informed IHF and the Asian Hockey Federation of this.
This pull-out denies Pakistan the chance to qualify to the FIH Hockey World Cup 2026. With Pakistan unable to participate in the Group B, Bangladesh has been included in the same group in the new schedule released by the AHF on August 19. The tournament has now been shifted to Rajgir and will take place between 29 Aug and 7 Sep 2025
The tournament will be conducted in Rajgir between August 29 and September 7. The new Group A consists of India, Japan, China and Kazakhstan whereas group B consists of Malaysia, Korea, Bangladesh, and Chinese Taipei. Winners of the Hero Asia Cup 2025 will also have automatic qualification to FIH Hockey World Cup Belgium-Netherlands 2026.
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President of the HF, Fumio Ogura, said that the Asia Cup will be an example of the best Asian hockey and noted its significance towards qualification. The excitement over the event notwithstanding, the absence of Pakistan makes the event a huge gap.
Finally, Pakistan backs out of the Asia Cup 2025, wasting their shot at continental success in addition to failing to qualify them in the World Cup.
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