European presidents meet in Cologne

The presidents of Europe’s handball federations met in Cologne on Sunday, 2 June 2013 ahead of the final matches of the VELUX EHF FINAL4.

Over 100 participants travelled to Germany to take part in the 11th Conference of Presidents discussing, feeding back and exchanging views on a range of issues.

Presentation were made on topics including the future developments of competitions including the Younger Age Category events and the Men’s and Women’s EHF Champions League.

Delegates also discussed the IHF Congress taking place in Doha, Qatar from 25 - 28 October 2013.

Federation awards

Over the past twenty years, the European Handball Federation has organised a total of 92 major senior and younger age category events.

38 nations in Europe have organised these events and 14 of the nations have orgnised three of more events – and are designated as top organisers within the EHF.

Six nations have already been awarded with the honour (Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, Slovenia and Turkey) and at the Conference of Presidents Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Sweden were also presented with awards.

Rinck Convention

New agreements were signed in the Rinck Convention, with Estonia, Netherlands and Romania becoming new members of the convention.

The Rinck Convention sets out mutual recognition of standards and certificates in the field of coaches' education in handball in Europe, in order to facilitate the direct admission to work as a handball coach. 28 nations are signed up to the convention.

The agreements were signed by the EHF President, Jean Brihault, EHF Methods Commission Chairman, Jerzy Eliasz and representatives of the three nations.

SMART Programme

Agreements were signed with the federations of Armenia, Moldova and Serbia to support the development of the sport in these countries through time-specific projects.

Initiated in 2001, SMART projects offer long-term support to developing nations via a three-year agreement.

The aim is to foster the development of grassroots handball for 10 to 18-year-olds based on three supporting activities: the nomination of EHF lecturers, equipment supply and limited financial project-based support.