(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
 ESF restructures pool-alignments of two European Championships
Nederlands
 LONDEN, England (Great Britain) -
The Technical Commission of the European Softball Federation (ESF) announced a restructure in the pool-alignments of the European Championships of both the women national teams, as well as the cadets girls, due to the withdrawals of some teams.
For the European Women Championship in Rosmalen (Netherlands) (July 19-25), Belgium and Bulgaria have withdrawn their teams.
Belgium initially was assigned to Pool B, while Bulgaria was to play in the preliminary round in Pool D.
As Pool C was the lone one with six teams (the other three pools had five), it was decided to move Poland from Pool C to Pool B to replace Belgium.
With this, Pool C now also has five teams.
Pool D now has become the lone one with four teams after the withdrawal of Bulgaria.
Pool A, the one in which defending champion Netherlands is playing, remains unchanged.
The pools now look like this:
Pool A - Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Israel
Pool B - Russia, Spain, Poland, Croatia, France
Pool C - Czech Republic, Austria, Ukraine, Slovenia, Ireland
Pool D - Italy, Great Britain, Slovakia, Switzerland
For the European Cadets Championship in Nuoro (Italy) (June 29-July 4), the pools also had to be restructured, as four (!) countries announced their withdrawal, being Netherlands, Israel, Lithuania and Serbia.
Initially, there were four pools of three teams each for the preliminary round.
As there are now eight teams left, it was decided to form two pools of four each.
The new alignments now look as follows:
Pool A - Czech Republic, Belgium, Ukraine, Italy
Pool B - Russia, Great Britain, Slovakia, Spain
(March 11)
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