Jalandhar: Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, said Punjab is ready to host the 2030 Hockey World Cup and urged Hockey India to name the state as host, speaking at the inauguration of the Hero Asian Champions Trophy at the Olympian Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar — the first time Punjab has hosted the continental tournament.
Mann appealed directly to Hockey India Secretary General Bhola Nath Singh to announce Punjab as the World Cup host during the Champions Trophy's closing ceremony on November 5. India is scheduled to host the Hockey World Cup in 2030; Mann's pitch, as the reports frame it, ranges from hosting the tournament to staking Punjab's claim to host its matches, with a successful Champions Trophy strengthening that case. This is a hosting ambition stated by the Chief Minister, not a confirmed decision: the final allocation of venues rests with Hockey India and the international federation, and no announcement had been made at the time of writing.
Six nations are taking part in the Champions Trophy — India, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. Mann welcomed the teams, honoured the captains of all six, and described the championship as the fulfilment of a long-standing dream of Punjab's hockey players to compete in an international tournament on home soil. He said Punjab and hockey share an inseparable bond, noted — as he stated it — that nine of the eleven players in the Indian team are from Punjab, and said his government wants to take hockey back to the people, arguing the game cannot survive only in stadiums and must live in villages, schools, academies and playgrounds.
Backing the pitch with his government's sports record, Mann said — in figures stated by him — that the state has allocated a sports budget of Rs 1,743 crore (yaani about Rs 17.43 billion) for the current financial year, is developing 3,148 rural sports grounds of which 750 have been inaugurated, and 6,000 modern gymnasiums of which 500 are operational. Players preparing for the Olympics receive Rs 15 lakh in assistance and those preparing for the Asian and Commonwealth Games Rs 8 lakh, he said, adding that since 2022 more than 40,000 players have received cash awards worth Rs 135 crore, and that the state's medal policy pays Rs 3 crore for Olympic gold, Rs 2 crore for silver and Rs 1 crore for bronze. These are the Chief Minister's stated figures for his government's programmes, not independently audited numbers.
The Champions Trophy runs in Jalandhar and Mohali until November 5. How Punjab handles its first continental hockey tournament is the practical test behind the pitch: it is the audition on which Mann is asking Hockey India to judge the far bigger claim he has now made in public.