COLORADO SPRINGS — France will replace Finland at the 2023 World Lacrosse Men’s Championship, World Lacrosse announced this week.  

France gained qualification following Finland’s withdrawal due to funding challenges. Finland was one of 11 teams to earn a spot in the championship at the European Lacrosse Federation qualification event in April 2022 in Poland. 

France was the next-highest ranked team (12th) at the ELF qualifier and has accepted the vacated spot at the 2023 Men’s Championship, set for June 2023 in San Diego. At the qualifier, France went 3-2 with wins over Belgium, Greece and Finland, and narrow losses to eventual qualifiers Netherlands and Sweden.  

France will make its fourth consecutive appearance at the men’s championship after competing in 2010, 2014 and 2018. 

The current field of 30 teams can be found on the website here. The previous world championship rankings determined the number of allocation spots awarded to each Continental Federation.