“EHF hits handball even before corona”

When someone explains to us how the EHF CL Final4 2020 tournament in Cologne can wait for the end of December, at least seven months after the end of the season in the middle of the new one, leaving 15 European national teams in men’s handball and even more in women’s the chances of competing for what is practically the only way for any Federation to come up with any kind of sponsorship, a million TV audience and a way to attract children to sports at the national level, then the epochal nonsense of the European Handball Federation will be easier to digest.

“You are defending your money and do not care about our,” the common sense would say. When it comes to the EHF box office, then the Michael Wiederer and his crew have no dilemma, even at the cost of deciding the EHF CL winner almost seven months after the season ends, during New Year’s Eve, with many players not even reaching that Final4 tournament, without any kind of sports logic and extreme loads of such an incredible calendar in the Olympic year.

“The surgery was successful, but the patient is dead.” And just like that. Fortress Europe was defended. Clubs will not have to release players for an extra period, and major competitions that generate the biggest hunt will be held under the motto of “the show must go on” regardless of casualties. Does anyone in Vienna care that the countries, crippled by this pandemic, will budget handball in Poland, Serbia, Russia, Romania, Montenegro, Macedonia and so on when they already know that the year 2021 has failed?

Why did the EHF decide to be the vanguard in over-the-knee bending? Why did EHF first had to say “wallet” in front of “the ball” in Europe? Why are other sports so stupid and still silent? Or is it a matter of strength?

Does this mean that the major F4 Champions League is above the interests of 25 national Federations? Why couldn’t the World Championship 2021 Play-Off and Women’s EURO 2020 qualifiers be played in September/October during EHF week? Why couldn’t the planned start of qualifying for Men’s EHF EURO 2022 be postponed for the next term, that December, and the finish for May, and even the EHF Sunday in October 2021, when world will, hopefully, beat corona? How can Olympic qualifications be held less than four months before the start of the Tokyo Games, and for a tournament in Hungary and Slovakia where half of the national teams can come by hitchhiking, can’t?

Does this mean that the European Championship is more important than the World Championship? Has anyone asked the Federation what they think of it? Federations elect EHF leadership.

And what about those two days of December reserved for cash at the Lanxess Arena? Hot-dog and beer in front of the Arena in Cologne have a special place in handball nomenclature. Who saw the poor guy in the slum? With qualification’s matches at the same time, pockets won’t be full.

The reckoning that a THW Kiel player with his team that reaches Tokyo could play 102 matches in the 2020/2021 season is enough to say where greed has brought us.

The pandemic exposed all the imperfections of the handball system. Handball is at a turning point and it must be known who is leading it? Butzek or Wiederer? Are leading European clubs more important than national teams? Is this only a result of Wiederer’s panic afraid to lose control over TOP clubs? This decision is a win for these clubs.

A dinosaur was created. The calendar was brought to the breaking point. The new marketing contract only formalized what we realized before, that players would be “robbed” under an incredible load in the number of matches and competitions pouring into each other, but for the same or less money from generations 10-15 years ago!? The qualifying cycle for the European Championships has been introduced, the number of European Cup matches increased and the number of EURO event participants. Athletes are running low, injury news is getting lower day by day, and people are more or less interested in having some “hype” every winter, as evidenced by this EURO 2020, where fans of at least 15-16 national teams were a statistical error in halls. It’s true. The European champions, Spaniards, have been followed only by wife and their mothers, no more than 30-40 in Stockholm. This is a real interest in the country of double EURO champions with a population of 50 million. Medals are increasingly worthless, but it is important that hunting spins and represents some lump sums about growth.

With all this harassment of athletes, the EHF is a “small kitten” when it comes to game modernization, a fundamental agreement with the IHF to modernize rules and introduce technology that would make sports a global sport. That is a taboo topic when entering Hasan Mustafa’s cabinet?

What is older, chicken or egg? Club or national team? We can argue and talk until tomorrow, but the facts are irrefutable, at least for many small countries on every part of Europea. Luka Cindric can play in “eight Barcelona and Kielce” and win five Champions League trophies, but if he does not play for the national team, people will ask “who is this?” at the door of local Caffe in the third village near his home town Ogulin. There is nothing different in many countries of the world, except for two or three, where handball is really on the market with paid tickets.

Basketball was taken by clubs, EURO events are set on every four years. And that is that. It’s tough to sit in two chairs, impossible. OK, teams for the rich, national teams from the poor, a clear dividing of the world.

In this kind of situation, the truth comes to light, but in handball, you don’t have enough rich and really poor. You can’t pollute our world even you want more money.

The recession that awaits us will illuminate much more. The beginning and end of this story is the fact that the European Handball Federation denied the right of 20 handball countries to qualify for the next competitions eight-nine months earlier, and four clubs were given a chance to play for the title seven months after the end of the season!? Nothing more to say.