Vienna hosts EHF technical commissions

The European Handball Federation’s technical commissions were in Vienna for their second round of meetings of the year.

Technical Delegation

Opening proceedings was a meeting of the chairs of each of the commissions on Thursday, 23 April.

Items on the agenda included the EHF’s blended learning programme for club managers, which will take place 28-30 May in Cologne under the title of “The Digital Fan – Community and Marketing".

Also discussed was the European Handball Manager qualification, to be introduced in September 2015, by the German Sport University Cologne in collaboration with the EHF.

Looking ahead to the new season, it was agreed that further training for delegates would take the form of an e-learning programme and on-line test rather than in the form of a workshop. The focus for the upcoming year will be on the evaluation of referee performance by delegates.

Additional items on the agenda included the Master Coach Certificate, European Union Week of Sport and issues around ‘protecting the game’ including training and educations programmes for officials, task distribution, adaptations to the code of conduct and further issues on a technical level.

Competitions Commission

Leopold Kalin chaired the Competitions Commission meeting, which looked in the main at national team issues but also discussed plans for the merging of the Women’s EHF Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup beginning with the 2016/17 season. 

Initial ideas for a new qualification system for the Men’s EHF EURO from 2020 with 24 teams were raised.

The new playing system for Younger Age Category Events, which starts in 2016 with the Men’s 18 European Championship, was examined. A total of 43 nations will compete, with 16 nations playing in the Men’s 18 EHF EURO 2016 and 27 nations in the Men’s 18 EHF Championships 2016. 

Croatia has put forward its application to host the Men’s 18 EHF EURO 2016 and six nations have expressed an interest in hosts one of the three Men’s 18 EHF Championships 2016 tournaments, which will be played with two tournaments of eight teams each and one with 11 teams. Bidding nations are: Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Lithuania, Israel and FYR Macedonia.

The Competitions Commission confirmed the playing schedule for the W19 EHF EURO in Valencia, Spain. The draw for the event will take place on 5 May 2015 at 11:30 hrs.

The schedule for the matches between Russia and Ukraine in the Men’s EHF EURO 2016 qualification was confirmed. The two nations will play in a neutral venue on subsequent days, 10 and then 11 June 2015 in Minsk, Belarus.

A first draft of the international calendar for the 2017/18 season was examined with further amendments to be made.

Methods Commission

The Methods Commissions, chaired by Jerzy Eliasz, looked ahead to the planning of upcoming events, including a Young Coaches Workshop to take place 15 – 19 June 2015 in Balatonboglár, Hungary for coaches up to 28 years of age. 

Lecturers for the event will include Peter Kovacs, Milan Petronijevic and mental coach, Jürgen Boss. 

Planning for the European Wheelchair Championships was also on the agenda, which will take place in St. Pölten, Austria on 12/13 December 2015.

The Commission looked at coaches licensing, national coaches clinics, EHF development programmes, handball at school and the 2015 EHF Scientific Conference, which will take place on 13 and 14 November 2015 and will focus on ‘Medical Aspects in Handball’ as well as scientific aspects of beach handball.

Beach Handball Commission

The Beach Handball Commission, under the chairmanship of Ole Jorstad, examined planning for upcoming events including the ebt Finals, to be held in the picturesque town of Budaörs, south-west of Hungary's capital Budapest, from 22 to 24 May 2015 with 10 men’s and 10 women’s teams. 

Parallel to the ebt Finals a course for beach handball referees and delegates will take place. 

The 2015 editions of the Younger Age Category and senior European Beach Handball Championships are set to take place in the Spanish coastal town of Lloret de Mar from 10 to 12 July 2015 and then 14 to 19 July 2015 respectively.

The commission highlighted the plans for extended media coverage of the event includinga young reporter programme, live blogging and a TV team bringing regular video reports from the event for online and social media channels.

Looking ahead, the Commission acknowledged the fact that beach handball would be part of the Youth Olympic Games from 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A qualification system for the event is yet to be defined.

The deadline for applications to organise the 2016 YAC Beach Handball Championships was set for 2 June 2015.