2024 European Women's Handball Championship

The 2024 European Women's Handball Championship will be held in Austria, Hungary and Switzerland from 28 November to 15 December 2024.[1] This will be the first tournament to feature 24 teams.

2024 EHF European Women's Handball Championship
Official logo
Tournament details
Host countries Austria
 Hungary
  Switzerland
Dates28 November – 15 December
Teams24 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)4 (in 4 host cities)
Next →

Bidding processes

First bidding process

Originally, there were two bids for the Women's EHF Euro 2024.[2]

On 5 September 2017, Russia's bid was the only bid left.[3]

However, later on, when the bids were announced for the 2022 and 2024 EHF Euros, Russia's bid was withdrawn and thus there were no applications left. On 20 June 2018, the day the host was supposed to be confirmed, the EHF voted to delay the awardment of the hosting rights.[4][5]

Delay the vote
Votes
Yes 37
No 5
Total 42

Second bidding process

In April 2019, the EHF reopened the bidding process. On the 20 September 2019, there were 3 new bids.[6]

The host announcement took place on 25 January 2020 at the EHF Extraordinary Congress in Stockholm. The winners were Austria, Hungary and Switzerland, who defeated the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia bid, 28–21, in the second round.[1]

Bids Rounds
Round one Round two
Austria Austria, Hungary Hungary and Switzerland Switzerland Advanced 28
Czech Republic Czech Republic, Poland Poland and Slovakia Slovakia Advanced 21
Russia Russia Eliminated –

Possible hosting change

On 12 January 2023, the Hungarian government's chancellery minister, Gergely Gulyás, announced that Hungary would withdraw as hosts due to financial reasons.[7] A few days prior, the Austrian Handball Federation was informed by the Hungarians about the decision to withdraw. The other co-hosts, Austria and Switzerland, now wanted to negotiate with the EHF about how the tournament will be held.[8] On 28 January, the European Handball Federation released a statement concerning the issue, and said that they were amazed and surprised with the decision to potentially withdraw as co-hosts.[9] On 16 March 2023, the EHF announced a change to the organisation structure of the championships. Hungary remained as a co-host, but played a reduced part in the hosting of the competition, including the whole portion of the tournament at the MVM Dome in Budapest (one Main Round group and the Final Weekend) being axed and replaced by Vienna.[10] During all the uncertainty, Romania had stated that they would be able to host the tournament if the original hosts couldn't.[11]

Venues

The final weekend was scheduled to be held at the MVM Dome in Budapest, Hungary, but later it was replaced with the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.[12]

Austria Innsbruck, Austria
Hungary Debrecen, Hungary
Olympiahalle
Capacity: 8,000		Főnix Hall
Capacity: 6,500
Switzerland Basel, SwitzerlandAustria Vienna, Austria
St. Jakobshalle
Capacity: 12,400		Wiener Stadthalle
Capacity: 12,000

Expansion

Expanding the competition, to 20 or 24 teams, was first considered in 30 August 2018. The idea was proposed by the Euro Delegation, but the EHF competitions commission strongly opposed the proposal, due to the fact that...

  • It would dilute the quality of the event
  • Trying to find a host (at the time, there was no host) would be more difficult because of a bigger tournament
  • Not many countries, who don't already qualify for the EHF Euro, would create a lasting legacy by qualifying.[13]

Despite the opposition from the competitions commission, the EHF received positive feedback from their new commercial partners, Infront and DAZN about the possible expansion. On 15 December, at the EHF Executive Committee in Paris, the EHF decided to examine to proposed expansion further.[14] In January 2019, they had introduced a working group to oversee the possible enlargement.[15][16] On 5 April 2019, based on the recommendations by the working group, the EHF officially decided to expand the tournament to 24 teams.[15][17]

Qualification
Main article: 2024 European Women's Handball Championship qualification

Qualified teams
CountryQualified asDate qualification was securedPrevious appearances in tournament1
 Austria00Co-hosts0125 January 20208 (1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008)
 Hungary00Co-hosts0125 January 202015 (1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022)
  Switzerland00Co-hosts0125 January 20201 (2022)
 Norway2022 champions20 November 202215 (1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022)
1 Bold indicates champion for that year

Marketing

The official logo was unveiled on 19 November 2022 at the closing press conference of the 2022 edition in Ljubljana, Slovenia.[18]

References
  1. "Hungary, Switzerland and Austria awarded Women's EHF EURO 2024 at Extraordinary Congress". European Handball Federation. 25 January 2020. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
  2. "These nations want to bid for EHF EUROs in 2022 and 2024". www.eurohandball.com.
  3. "Four nations intend to bid for Women's EHF EUROs in 2022 and 2024". www.eurohandball.com.
  4. https://www.handball.no/globalassets/nhf-sentralt/om-oss/organisasjon/protokoller/ehf-og-ihf/ehf-congress/20180717ehf-minutes-congress-2018.pdf
  5. "EHF EUROs bids for 2022/24 now available online". www.eurohandball.com.
  6. "EHF Executive Commitee confirms bids to host Women's EHF EURO 2024". www.eurohandball.com.
  7. "Magyarország részben vagy egészben visszaléphet a 2024-es női kézilabda Európa-bajnokság rendezésétől". 12 January 2023.
  8. "Ungarn zieht sich als Ausrichter der Frauen-Handball-EM 2024 zurück". handball-world.
  9. "Official statement on Women's EHF EURO 2024". www.eurohandball.com.
  10. "New Organizational Structure for Women's EHF Euro 2024", www.eurohandball.com, 16 March 2023, accessed 15 April 2023
  11. https://www.eurosport.ro/handbal/ce-lovitura-romania-va-organiza-europeanul-de-handbal-feminin-orasele-care-vor-gazdui-meciuri_sto9711206/story.shtml
  12. New organisational structure for women's EHF EURO 2024 EHF 16 March 2023
  13. https://www.handball.no/globalassets/nhf-sentralt/om-oss/organisasjon/protokoller/ehf-og-ihf/ehf-competitions-commission/20180927ehf-minutes-cc-3008.pdf
  14. "EHF Executive meets at EHF EURO 2018 in Paris". www.eurohandball.com.
  15. "Women's EHF EURO expands to 24 teams from 2024". www.eurohandball.com.
  16. https://www.handball.no/globalassets/nhf-sentralt/om-oss/organisasjon/protokoller/ehf-og-ihf/ehf-competitions-commission/20190423ehf-minutes-cc-2202.pdf
  17. https://www.handball.no/globalassets/nhf-sentralt/om-oss/organisasjon/protokoller/ehf-og-ihf/ehf-executive-committee/20190410ehf-minutes-exec-04-0504.pdf
  18. "Three countries, four cities, one special taste in 2024". Retrieved 19 November 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.