Tuesday’s draw marks first step towards the World Championship 2019

While top European teams will join the race for the IHF Men’s World Championship 2019 only in the spring next year, the first 23 countries from the continent have to set out for the journey to Denmark and Germany already this autumn.

The draw of the Qualification phase 1 will take place at the EHF Office in Vienna on Tuesday 18 July at 15:00 hrs and will be preceded by two younger age category tournaments – Men’s 18 and 20 Championship 2018. Watch the draw live on the EHF EURO Facebook page and the EHF EURO YouTube channel at the bottom of this page.

Draw procedure

The teams are seeded in five pots based on their performance at the most recent qualifications as follows:

6 Teams in row 1 (place 3/EHF EURO 2018 Qual.) pot 1: BIH, LTU, NED, POR, ROU, RUS
7 Teams in row 2 (place 4/EHF EURO 2018 Qual.) pot 2: BEL, FIN, LAT, POL, SUI, SVK, UKR
4 Teams in row 3 (participants/EHF EURO 2020 Phase 2) pot 3: EST, GRE, ISR, ITA
3 Teams in row 4 (place 2/EHF EURO 2020 Phase 1) pot 4: CYP, LUX, TUR
3 Teams in row 5 (place 3/EHF EURO 2020 Phase 1) pot 5: FAR, GEO, KOS

The draw will be conducted in the seven following steps:
1. One team of pot 2 is drawn to pot 3
2. One team of pot 4 are drawn to pot 3
3. Three teams of pot 5 are going to pot 4
4. Five teams of pot 4 are drawn to row 4, groups 1-5
5. Six teams of pot 3 are drawn to row 3, groups 1-6
6. Six teams of pot 2 are drawn to row 2, groups 1-6
7. Six teams of pot 1 are drawn to row 1, groups 1-6

Playing dates

The qualification matches will be played over six rounds (home and away) in 5 groups of 4 teams and 1 group of 3 teams.

Round 1: Wednesday & Thursday 25-26 October 2017
Round 2: Saturday & Sunday 28–29 October 2017
Round 3: Wednesday & Thursday 3-4 January 2018
Round 4: Saturday & Sunday 6-7 January 2018
Round 5: Wednesday & Thursday 10–11 January 2018
Round 6: Saturday & Sunday 13–14 January 2018

The winner of each group qualifies for the play-off matches, which will be played on 8 to10 June and 12 to14 June 2018.

Europe will be represented by 13 teams at the World Championship 2019. Besides the defending champions France also the final tournament’s co-hosts Denmark and Germany have secured their places.

At the upcoming EHF EURO 2018 in Croatia next January the best ranked team out of AUT, BLR, CRO, CZE, ESP, HUN, ISL, MKD, MNE, NOR, SLO, SRB, SWE will also get a direct ticket to the World Championship. The remaining twelve teams will join the six qualifiers from the first phase in the qualification play-off.