Netball World Cup draw confirmed for 15 September

The competition draw for Preliminaries Stage One of the Netball World Cup 2019 will take place on Saturday 15 September. The draw will take place during England Netball’s annual volunteer recognition evening, the Vitality Goalden Globe Awards, to be held at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham.

The top eight ranked teams – as per the International Netball Federation annual rankings from July 2018 – will be seeded into four groups for the first phase of the 16-team tournament (Preliminaries Stage One). The draw will position the remaining eight teams into these groups.

In February the International Netball Federation announced a new format for the World Cup, which will see teams compete in three stages: the Preliminaries Stage One from 12-14 July, the Preliminaries Stage Two from 15-18 July and the Play-offs and Placings matches from 19 -21 July.

Host nation England are second seeds, after climbing up the world rankings to second position for the first time in their history, following their Commonwealth Games gold medal in April 2018.

All but four of the competing teams have now qualified for next summer’s event, with the remaining teams set to be confirmed at the regional qualifying events for the Americas (24 August – 2 September) and Asia (1-9 September) regions.

Following confirmation of the competition draw, the full competition schedule for Preliminaries Stage One will be finalised, ahead of tickets for the event going on sale at 10am on Wednesday 19 September.