IHF Men’s World Championship will be held on Saturday, 5 September 2020, at the Giza Pyramids Plateau, starting at 19:00 (local time).
The championship will be the first time an IHF World Championship features 32 teams in the newly-expanded format. 30 of the 32 teams are already confirmed with just the winners of the South and Central America Handball Confederation (SCAHC) Last Chance Qualification Tournament and North America and The Caribbean Handball Confederation (NCAHC) Men’s Championship to be decided.
The 32 teams will initially be spread across eight preliminary groups, featuring four teams each. The top three teams in each group (24 in total) will then progress through to the main round, with the bottom team in each group (8) moving into the President’s Cup.
The 24 main round teams will be divided into four groups of six teams each with the top two from each moving into the quarter-finals, ahead of the semi-finals and final.
Draw procedure
In the draw, four pots – numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 – will feature eight teams each, according to seeding:
Pot 1: Denmark (DEN), Spain (ESP), Croatia (CRO), Norway (NOR), Slovenia (SLO), Germany (GER), Portugal (POR), Sweden (SWE)
Pot 2: Egypt (EGY), Argentina (ARG), Austria (AUT), Hungary (HUN), Tunisia (TUN), Algeria (ALG), Qatar (QAT), Belarus (BLR)
Pot 3: Iceland (ISL), Brazil (BRA), Uruguay (URU), Czech Republic (CZE), France (FRA), Republic of Korea (KOR), Japan (JPN), Bahrain (BRN)
Pot 4: Angola (ANG), Cape Verde (CPV), Morocco (MAR), SCAHC 4, DR Congo (COD), Poland (POL), NACHC 1, Russia (RUS)
One team from pot 1, pot 2, pot 3 and pot 4 will be drawn into each of the eight preliminary groups, starting with teams in pot 4 being drawn into row 4, followed by pot 3 into row 3 and then pot 1 into row 1.
Once this part of the draw has been completed, Egypt, who are in pot 2 and row 2, then have the right as hosts to assign themselves to a group of their choice. After Egypt have decided which group they want to be in, the remaining three nations are then drawn, completing the draw.