EHF Congress the stage for Men's Junior World Championship Qualification draw

Weather forecasts for Dublin this week, when the EHF Congress comes to the Irish capital, predict the Irish version of an 'Indian summer'.

However, while the members of Europe's handball federations are nevertheless advised to pack clothes suitable for more than just summer, the junior teams lucky enough to score a place at the Men's Junior World Championship 2015 in Brazil can surely pack lighter gear.

The first step towards Brazil is the qualification and the teams facing each other in overall eight qualification tournament will be drawn at the aforementioned EHF Congress on Saturday, 20 September at 10:30 hrs.

Three European teams, Germany as the Men's 20 EHF EURO champions, Sweden as the silver medallists at the Men's 20 EHF EURO and current youth world champions Denmark, are already qualified.

This means that there are another eight spots up for grabs which will be decided among 30 teams that have entered the qualification.

They will be drawn to six groups consisting of four teams each and two groups consisting of three teams each. No matter whether there are three or four teams in one group, only the first ranked team will go to Brazil.

The pots for draw are as follows

• Pot 1: Spain, Slovenia, Austria, France, Serbia, Hungary, Norway, Belarus
• Pot 2: Switzerland, Slovakia, Estonia, Israel, FYR Macedonia
• Pot 3: Romania, Greece, Portugal
• Pot 4: Montenegro, Poland, Croatia, Russia, Iceland, Netherlands
• Pot 5: Czech Republic, Lithuania, Ukraine, Turkey, Faroe Islands, Great Britain
• Pot 6: Bulgaria, Kosovo

The participation of Kosovo is subject to the congress decision of granting full membership to the Handball Association of Kosovo.

The qualification tournaments are played from 9 to 11 January 2015. The Men's Junior World Championship next year takes place from 19 July to 2 August 2015.