The2020 Bandy World Championship was to be an international sports tournament between men's national teams amongbandy playing nations. It was to be the fortiethBandy World Championship. While the Division B tournament was held from 1 to 6 March 2020,[2]the Division A tournament was postponed a number of times and finally cancelled on 1 March 2022.
The Division A tournament was supposed to be held from 29 March to 5 April 2020 but was postponed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[3] The Division A tournament was cancelled on 15 September 2020.[4] The FIB later announced that the 2020 Division A tournament inIrkutsk would be finalised in October 2021, and the subsequent World Championship inSyktyvkar would be played in 2022. On 24 August 2021, Sweden announced its withdrawals from the competition, due to the continued threat of COVID-19. Finland and Norway had already made the same decisions earlier.[5] Subsequently, on 30 August 2021, the FIB decided to postpone the championships once again, now to March - April 2022,[6] which would be the2022 Bandy World Championship.
The 2019 tournament was originally supposed to be held inIrkutsk in Russia,[7] but the decision was reconsidered[8] due to a failure to meet the demands on an arena accepted for international play[9] and the tournament was held inVänersborg in Sweden instead.[10]
For 2020, the newArena Baikal will be ready for play, and therefore, this year's world championship will be held in Irkutsk. Some games will probably be played in surrounding cities too.[11]
The last time the World Championship was held in Irkutsk, was in2014.
Based on the nations taking part in thelast world championship tournament and the qualification made there, the following nations were foreseen to participate.
^The 2020 BWC Division A tournament was to be held from 29 March to 5 April 2020 but was postponed due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, but 2020 BWC Division B was contested from 1 to 6 March 2020.