The empowerment of women and sustainability will be the two major topics in focus at the Women’s EHF EURO 2022 when it comes around in November this year.
Speaking at the closing press conference at Men’s EHF EURO 2022 in Budapest, the tournament organisers explained just how important the subjects are ahead of throw off on 4 November.
That importance is underlined by the fact for the first time at an EHF EURO, a Sustainability Manager will be in place specifically to handle issues concerning sustainability. A commitment to sustainability projects will also be signed to aid ease the social, economic and environmental pressures that come with hosting a major sporting competition.
On the topic of the empowerment of women, the tournament organisers have enlisted the support of over a dozen ambassadors for the competition. Coming from various backgrounds in sport, media and culture, they include singer-songwriter and women’s rights activist Senidah, who will also produce and sing the official anthem.
Franjo Bobinac, EHF Executive Committee member and President of the Handball Association of Slovenia, said: “This will be the biggest ever women’s sporting competition ever held in our countries and we thought long and hard about how to do things differently for this event.
“We will do it by combining sport, business, media, culture and politics. It has to be different from the past. Sustainability and women empowerment are key for us and with our ambassadors behind us it is going to be a tournament to remember.”
With the slogan Play with Heart, the 15th Women’s EHF EURO will be held in arenas in Ljubljana and Celje in Slovenia, in Skopje in North Macedonia and in Podgorica in Montenegro between 4-20 November.
A series of events will be planned in the lead up to throw-off, including the installation of a countdown clock in Ljubljana and Celje, a conference on the empowerment of women and a human chain between Ljubljana and Celje which will transfer a handball.
Here to Play – 2024 heads to Germany
A video presentation on behalf of the German Handball Federation outlined the plans for the next Men’s EHF EURO in two years’ time.
The Men’s EHF EURO 2024 will be the first – since the competition format expanded to 24 nations – to be played in one country.
The German federation’s biggest plan is the aim to break the attendance record for a handball match by holding the opening match of the championship inside the 50,000-seater Merkur Spiel Arena in Düsseldorf on 10 January.
In total six cities will help host the event, with Dusseldorf, Berlin, Mannheim and Munich the venues for the preliminary round and Hamburg and Cologne the destination for the main round. The final weekend will be held in Cologne’s famous handball arena, the LANXESS arena.
