Croatia and Hungary lost the hosting of the European Championship for men in 2014, but the way the voting was performed, raised suspicions about possible computer manipulations, and the president of the Croatian Handball Federation, Zoran Gobac, was very loud on this topic.
For the Croatian media he said that “I warned the EHF that computer voting is not good, because it can be fixed, how is it possible that two votes are gone? Maybe that’s the votes for Hungary and Croatia”. Then also complained about the ‘abstaint’ nation adding that “how can one be neutral? why did they come then? one can not be neutral when they are deciding the fate of such big competitions.”
He also gave recommendation that the voting should by ballot paper voting again, which will make it very simple, and being ironic, said that if the computer voting was in Croatia, Croatia would probably win by 32 votes to 16. Gobac was notably very angry about which type of countries decided who the winner is. “Scotland, Ireland, England, Monaco and Liechtenstein decided the winner. They are countries where the handball is on the margins. Some circles in the EHF will have to start asking themself how only Scandinavian countries get to host the big competitions.”
Regarding the possible host of World Cup 2013, he noted that it’s only Spain and Denmark left, and it’s very obvious now who will be the host.
