Quidditch Anyone?

The IQA World Cup is the former “world” championships of quidditch which was held yearly in the United States.

Strange, but true this has been held every four years since 1473 and the number of of participating countries varies from tournament to tournament.

Any country may enter a team within twelve months of the previous final event.

Sixteen separate groups of teams are formed and each team plays all of the other teams in their group over a two year span or period of time.

During the group phase there is a cap of four hours on every game to avoid player exhaustion.

On the occasion that the game ends after four hours of play and the Snitch isn’t caught, the result is decided on goals.

A win earns two points and in addition to these two points a win by 150 points earns five points, by 100 points an extra three points and by 50 points an extra one point. Have I lost you yet?

If two teams are level on points, they are separated by whichever team captured the Snitch most often or most quickly during their matches.

The sixteen teams who have finished top of the sixteen groups qualify for the World Cup

As it was maintained by the former IQA, it was almost a purely US-based tournament, seeing little turnout from teams outside of the country.

This tournament was discontinued in 2014 when the IQA took on its new role as international sports federation.

Instead they went on to host Global Games as a world championship with individual teams relying on their national governing body for a culminating tournament.

The last World Cup was held in Myrtle Beach at the North Myrtle Beach Sports Complex on 5 and 6 April 2014.

This featured 79 teams, mostly from the United States, but with a few from north of the 49^th (Canada) as well as Australia.

The World Cup has since been discontinued as of 2014 in favour of what is now called the Global Games where there is legitimate international play for the sport.

Other major national and international championships such as the USQ World Cup and the well known European Quidditch Cup.

Qualification comes in two forms: official matches and regional tournaments.

Teams must compete in at least two official matches before the World Cup to be able to compete, meaning it is an IQA-sanctioned event (requested and added to the IQA calendar) and between two paying, tournament (in the US/Canada; ‘basic’ elsewhere) teams.

Regional’s are a tournament, held oftentimes in November or February, where official teams in that region come together to compete, with the winner in the top certain number of spots being awarded a place at the World Cup.

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