Press Release courtesy of FINA
The European preliminary rounds of the FINA Women’s Water Polo World League 2018 kick-off tomorrow on Tuesday, November 21 across various European cities.
The following four teams will be taking part: Spain, Hungary, Netherlands and Russia
For the first round, the Netherlands will play Hungary at home, in Utrecht (NED) and Spain will face the Russians in Dos Hermanas (ESP).
The women’s European preliminaries will also be played in six rounds, following this calendar from November 2017 to May 2018:
| Round | Date | |||
| #1 | 21/11/2017 | NEDvsHUN | ESPvsRUS | |
| #2 | 19/12/2017 | RUSvsNED* | HUNvsESP | |
| #3 | 30/01/2018 | HUNvsRUS | NEDvsESP | |
| #4 | 27/02/2018 | HUNvsNED | RUSvsESP | |
| #5 | 27/03/2018 | NEDvsRUS | ESPvsHUN | |
| #6 | 1/05/2018 | RUSvsHUN | ESPvsNED | |
*game will be played on December 22, 2017
After the conclusion of these six rounds, the three best teams from Europe will be qualified for the Super Final to be held from May 28– June 2 2018. They will then be joined by four other teams selected from the Intercontinental Tournament + the host country team.
There is a total prize money of US$ 202,500 for the 2018 edition, and the winning team gets US$ 50,000 (2nd US$ 40K, 3rd US$ 30K, 4th US$ 25K, 5th US$ 20K, 6th US$ 15K, 7th US$ 12,5K, 8th US$ 10K).
Check out the 2018 Rules & Regulations
World and Olympic champions USA hold the World League title since 2014, while Canada an Russia secured the silver and bronze medals respectively in 2017.