Month played March/April Administrator(s) Quidditch Europe | Established 2012 Website Official EQC website | |
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The European Quidditch Cup, also known as EQC and formerly as the European Quidditch Championship, is the culminating championship tournament for the sport of quidditch in Europe. It began to be legitimised in 2014 when the International Quidditch Association shifted to become an international federation for quidditch. The tournament began in 2012 as quidditch began to develop across Europe, being held in France. Today, the tournament is the highest level of championship besides the European Games with league-level tournaments being the qualifying competitions. EQC 2015 was held on 18–19 April 2015 in Oxford, UK.
Contents
EQC 2017 will be held on 25-26 March 2017 in Mechelen, Belgium.
History
Originally held in Lesparre-Médoc, France, EQC has since grown into the largest quidditch tournament in Europe and the most international quidditch tournament in the IQA. EQC 2014 saw teams from almost more countries than the IQA Global Games, and EQC 2015 is expecting to receive teams from at least twelve different quidditch-playing nations.
Format
It is still unknown what the format of EQC 2015 will be. EQC 2014 saw a round-robin set-up on two-pitches.
Qualification
EQC 2015 saw a different form of qualification than its predecessors that introduced a team limit to the tournament as well as qualification guidelines. The Quidditch Europe committee has planned to change the qualification format for EQC 2016 and onward. Currently, the committee for EQC is distributing bids to individual nations (or sub-national regions in the case of Catalonia) based on discussions with NGBs' representatives and team pre-registration. It is for each national governing body of quidditch to determine how individual bids will be partitioned to teams under their jurisdiction.
Hosts
EQC 2015 is being hosted by Oxford University's quidditch club and QuidditchUK. EQC 2014 was hosted by the then-Belgium Muggle Quidditch (current: Belgian Quidditch Federation) and the Brussels Qwaffles. The first EQC was hosted by the then-French Quidditch Association (current: Fédération du quidditch français).
Selection procedures
Interested teams or NGBs submit a bid proposal outlining their location, the cost and the benefits attached to their bid to a sub-committee composed of Quidditch Europe members. The sub-committee then chooses the bid and selects from an applicant pool the tournament director.