ZURICH – The IIHF has announced the groups and participants for the 2016 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship Qualification.

The events will be played to determine the teams for the next IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship that will take place in Slovakia in 2017.

While the top-13 teams from last year’s event in Finland are automatically qualified, the remaining three participants will be determined through three regional qualification events.

The next tournament on the schedule is the Qualification Asia/Oceania that will take place in New Plymouth, New Zealand, 21-25 April 2016.

Japan, which was relegated last summer, will play host New Zealand, which last time played in the Worlds in 2012, India, Malaysia and Singapore in the five-team round-robin event.

For the Qualification Europe nine teams have announced their participation. They will play in three groups consisting of three teams each and the group winners will then determine the qualifier for 2017. Austria, Israel and Turkey will play in Group A; Latvia, FYR Macedonia and Serbia are seeded in Group B; and Belgium, Bulgaria and Ireland will play in Group C.

Brazil as the only registered participant for the Qualification Americas/Africa is automatically qualified for the 2017 IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship where they will join fellow South American neighbours Argentina among other already qualified teams in the Division I competition.

Click here for the IIHF Inline Hockey World Championship overview.