12 teams eye path to 2025 Women’s World Championship

EHF / Courtney Gahan

29 July 2024, 11:30

For 12 European teams, the path to the 2025 IHF Women’s World Championship will soon be visible, as the draw for qualification phase 1 is set to take place on Tuesday July 30 at 11:00 CEST.

Those 12 teams will be reduced to four in phase 1, with the four sides that successfully make their way through phase 1 then joining phase 2: The two-leg play-offs that will decide 11 of Europe’s allocated places at the final tournament in the Netherlands and Germany. Another three places will be determined at the upcoming EHF EURO 2024.

The 12 teams to contest phase 1 are based on the current women’s national team ranking: Italy, Greece, Kosovo, Finland, Israel, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Belgium and Estonia. The draw will see the teams divided into four groups of three for a round-robin competition, from which the winners of each group will progress to phase 2.

The pots for Tuesday’s draw are as follows:

Pot 1: Italy, Greece, Kosovo, Finland
Pot 2: Israel, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pot 3: Bulgaria, Great Britain, Belgium, Estonia

The draw will encompass four steps:

Four pot 3 teams drawn to row 3 in groups 1–4
Four pot 2 teams drawn to row 2 in groups 1–4
Four pot 1 teams drawn to row 1, groups 1–4
Draw of organising right

The phase 1 group tournaments are expected to be played from October 25 to 27.

As hosts of the World Championship, the Netherlands and Germany are directly qualified, along with France as the defending title holders. In addition, the three top-ranked teams at the Women’s EHF EURO 2024 — excluding the Netherlands, Germany and France — will also qualify directly for the World Championship.

The teams already qualified for phase 2, who will await the successful phase 1 sides in the play-off stage, are Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Montenegro, Spain, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Croatia, Czechia, Poland, Serbia, Austria, Switzerland, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Iceland, Slovakia, Portugal, Türkiye and Faroe Islands. With three of those teams sure to book a direct ticket to the World Championship via the EURO, there will be 18 sides left, who will be joined by the four teams progressed from phase 1.

The draw for phase 2 is scheduled to take place as part of the final weekend of the EHF EURO 2024, on December 14 in Vienna. The draw will pair teams for two-leg play-offs that will be held in 2025, with the aggregate victors to secure places at the World Championship. The first leg will be played on April 9 and 10, and the second will take place on April 12 and 13.

The 27^th IHF Women’s World Championship will be played from November 27 to December 14, 2025, with a total of 32 teams vying for the trophy. France were the title winners in 2023, ahead of Norway as runners-up and Denmark as bronze medallists.