Lausanne, Jul 8 (IANS): The international hockey federation will start promotion and relegation for the FIH Women's Pro League for the next season and has invited India to compete in the upcoming eight-team competition called the Women's Nations Cup.

The Women's Nations Cup, a new yearly competition for the second-rung teams placed from 10th to 20th in the FIH rankings, will take place in Valencia, Spain, from December 10-17 next year, the FIH said in a release on Thursday.

Apart from India and host Spain, the other teams in the fray are Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea and South Africa.

"The aim of this new yearly event is to offer a top-level competition to the best-ranked teams not participating in the Hockey Pro League and give the winning team the option to be promoted to the Hockey Pro League the next season," the FIH release said.

Thus, the winning team of the Women's Nations Cup in 2022 will have "the chance to be promoted to the 2023-24 FIH Hockey Pro League (provided they meet the necessary requirements for it), the FIH said.

"On behalf of FIH, I'd like to thank wholeheartedly the Royal Spanish Hockey Federation for hosting this inaugural edition of the FIH Hockey Women's Nations Cup, a new competition in our portfolio which will bring further excitement to our sport," FIH CEO Thierry Weil said.

"Nothing less than a place within the FIH Hockey Pro League is at stake. This promises to generate great and hard-fought matches between excellent teams. That is really good for the growth of our sport worldwide."