New era for younger age category tournaments begins in 2016

2016 marks the beginning of a new era in the EHF’s younger age category tournaments.

Following the approval of the EHF Congress in September 2014, the system is set for an overhaul from 2016 on with the aim of optimising the competition level, providing all teams with a reasonable number of matches and reducing the costs for organisation and participation in order to keep the competitions accessible.

The first tournament affected is the Men’s 18 EHF EURO 2016 with one of the major changes being that there will be no qualifications played but only final tournaments on different levels.

Since there are no qualification tournaments, a ranking list will decide about the participation of a federation in either the ‘Division 1’ or the ‘Division 2’.

The number of eventual ‘Division 2’ tournaments will depend on the number of teams registered.

The ranking list which will be used for the Men’s 18 events in 2016 includes the results from eight events beginning with the Men’s 18 EHF EURO 2006 in Estonia to the Men’s 20 EHF EURO 2014 in Austria.

The first 16 nations from this ranking are eligible to participate in the ‘Division 1’ tournament, the remaining 34 in ‘Division 2’ tournaments.

Following the first series of tournaments in one age category, a promotion system will come into effect which sees up to the four best ranked teams of the ‘younger’ age category of ‘Division 2’ move to the next event of ‘Division 1’ in the older category and up to the last four teams of ‘Division 1’ relegate to ‘Division 2’.

With the new system comes also a new name as the events in ‘Division 1’ will be called EHF EURO and the ‘Division 2’ events will be called EHF Championship.   

The new system will be rolled out over the next few years. In 2016 the Men’s 18 EHF EURO and the Men’s 18 EHF Championships will be played in the new system, while there will still be qualification tournaments for the Men’s 20 EHF EURO.

The same goes true for the Women’s 17 EHF EURO / Women’s 17 EHF Championships 2017 and the Women’s 19 EHF EURO 2017 – new system  for the former, old system for the latter.

In 2018 the Men’s 18 and the Men’s 20 events will be played in the new system, the women follow in 2019.

Registration opens and organisers are sought

The European Handball Federation has now opened registration for the first round of tournaments under the new system.

Federations wishing to register for the Men’s 18 EHF EURO 2016 or the Men’s 18 EHF Championship 2016 are asked to do so until 27 February 2015.

At the same time federations wishing to host a final tournament in either ‘Division 1’ or ‘Division 2’ are asked to submit their bid until 31 March 2015.

For the Men’s 18 events in 2016, only federations being ranked in ‘Division 1’ can host the ‘Division 1’ final tournament (this holds true vice versa for ‘Division 2’).

Bidding and the call for organisers has also started for the Men's 20 EHF EURO 2016 which will still be played in the former system.

The final tournaments for 2016 in the Men's 18 and the Men's 20 category will be awarded by the EHF Executive Committee in June 2015.