Groups drawn for 2014 Men's 18 European Championship Qualification

34 European youth handball teams can now start preparing for their respective opponents in the qualification for the 2014 Men's 18 European Championship in Poland (14 to 24 August) as the qualification groups were drawn at the European Handball Federation's office in Vienna on Thursday.

There are seven groups of four teams each and two groups of three teams each. The playing dates for the qualification are 10 to 12 January 2014.

The top two ranked teams qualify from Groups 1 to 6, only the first ranked team qualifies from Groups 7 to 9.

The draw was conducted by EHF Secretary General Michael Wiederer and by Leopold Kalin, Chairman of the EHF Competitions Commission.

The draw results are as follows:

Group 1: Germany, Finland, Portugal, Hungary

Group 2: Sweden, Iceland, Greece, Moldova

Group 3: Denmark, France, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Group 4: Spain, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Lithuania

Group 5: Austria, Switzerland, Israel, Russia

Group 6: Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Georgia, Netherlands

Group 7: Serbia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Estonia

Group 8: Romania, Turkey, Armenia

Group 9: Belarus, Italy, Latvia

The first right to organise the qualification tournaments was drawn to Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Romania and Belarus.