Vote for WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2025!

Posted on 29. December 2025.

The 15th year in a row, Handballl-Planet.com organizes the Contest for the WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2025 powered by Nexe Grupa! The Voting process of the traditional December’s competition is based on opinion of handball journalists from all over the world. Handball-Planet.com Jury of handball Experts from various handball markets and cultures made the list of 32 players (four per team’s position) who will be in the race for the title of the WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2025, but also “BEST 8” OF WORLD HANDBALL 2025.

Exactly 18 of 32 nominated players have repeated success of nomination from 2024.

The last member of Jury are Handball-Planet.com visitors, who can support their favorites by joining the Polls on website, but also Instagram page until January 14. It is important to be remembered that votes of handball fans across the globe will be added to existing number of points given by the journalist’s jury.

Journalists and fans will together announce the best at the end of the voting process.

Here are the nominations for the HP WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2025 per position (CLICK AND VOTE):

WORLD BEST LEFT WING 2025
WORLD BEST LEFT BACK 2025
WORLD BEST PLAYMAKER 2025
WORLD BEST RIGHT BACK 2025
WORLD BEST RIGHT WING 2025
WORLD BEST LINE-PLAYER 2025
WORLD BEST GOALKEEPER 2025
WORLD BEST DEFENSIVE PLAYER 2025

SUPPORT YOUR FAVORITE PLAYERS ALSO ON HANDBALL-PLANET.COM INSTAGRAM PAGE BY liking their photos.

VOTE UNTIL january 14

LEFT WING:
Emil Jakobsen (SG Flensburg Handewitt – Denmark)
Ian Barrufet (FC Barcelona – Spain)
Dylan Nahi (Industria Kielce – France)
Lucas Mertens (SC Magdeburg – Germany)

LEFT BACK:
Lasse Andersson (Fuchse Berlin – Denmark)
Simon Pytlick (SG Flensburg Handewitt – Denmark)
Felix Claar (SC Magdeburg – Sweden)
Martim Costa (Sporting CP – Portugal)

PLAYMAKER:
Juri Knorr (Rhein Neckar Lowen – Germany)
Elias Ellefsen á Skipagøtu (THW Kiel – Faroe Islands)
Aymeric Minne (HBC Nantes – France)
Gisli Kristjansson (SC Magdeburg – Iceland)

RIGHT BACK:
Dika Mem (FC Barcelona – France)
Omar Ingi Magnusson (SC Magdeburg – Iceland)
Francisco (Sporting CP – Portugal)
Mathias Gidsel (Fuchse Berlin – Denmark)

RIGHT WING:
Blaz Janc (FC Barcelona – Slovenia)
Aleix Gomes (FC Barcelona – Spain)
Mario Sostaric (Pick Szeged – Croatia)
Hakun West av Teigum (Fuchse Berlin – Faroe Islands)

LINE-PLAYER:
Ludovic Fabregas (Veszprem – France)
Kamil Syprzak (PSG Handball – Poland)
Victor Iturriza (FC Porto – Portugal)
Magnus Saugstrup (SC Magdeburg – Denmark)

GOALKEEPER:
Emil Nielsen (FC Barcelona – Denmark)
Andreas Wolff (THW Kiel – Germany)
Dejan Milosavljev (Fuchse Berlin – Serbia)
Sergey Hernandez (SC Magdeburg – Germany)

DEFENSIVE SPECIALIST:
Magnus Saugstrup (SC Magdeburg – Denmark)
Thiagus Petrus (FC Barcelona – Brasil)
Karl Konan (PSG Handball – France)
Oscar Bergendahl (SC Magdeburg – Sweden)

JURY MEMBERS:

Jonas Risager Nyhøj (TV 2 – Denmark)
Jasmin Tajić (Oslobodjenje, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Jorge Dargel (MARCA, Spain)
Johan Flinck (Aftonbladet, Sweden)
Života Bogdanović (Balkan-handball.com, Serbia)
Sergey Prigolovkin (handballfast.com, Russia)
Rici Gjamovski (mkdhandball.mk, North Macedonia)
Lojze Grčman (Podcast Roling, Slovenia)
Luca Zadra (Pallamano Italia)
Bjorn Pazen (Handball Woche, Germany)
Uros Samardzic (TV Arena Sport, Serbia)

JURY MEMBERS FROM ALL OVER THE HANDBALL WORLD

Our goal that handball world gets a public and fair contest for the World best players of the year, since 2010 received a big support from the parts of handball globe. WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2024 Jury is consisted of the people with their names and CV’s with the clear aim to get opinion from different countries, continents, handball schools and traditions. Our Jury members are famous handball specialists in their countries, which coming from the biggest media (Marca, TV 2 NO, ORF, TV2 DK, TV Arena Sport), but also from specialized websites and newspapers as Handball Woche, Balkan-Handball.com, etc…

NAGY, JICHA, DUVNJAK, KARABATIĆ, HANSEN…

Handball-Planet.com looking for the 15th World’s Handball Player in the history of our Contest. Hungarian TOP star Laszlo Nagy won award in 2011 when over 6500 fans voted on our Poll question. WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2012 was Czech star Filip Jicha (over 13.000 voters), while in 2013 the first name in the handball world was Domagoj Duvnjak with unified opinion of Jury members and huge support of the fans (about 146.000 votes for all nominees in total).

The WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2014 was Nikola Karabatić, with the great support of Jury members, but also over 171.000 fans who voted in our Polls. Fantastic French star won also the title in 2015.
The winner of 2016 Contest was his team-mate from PSG Handball, Danish TOP star Mikkel Hansen.

He won his third title in 2021.

JIM GOTTFRIDSSON is title holder from 2022.

Title defender is Danish superstar Mathias Gidsel with two nominations in 2023 and 2024.

HANDBALL-PLANET.COM WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER OF THE YEAR

2011 – Laszlo Nagy
2012 – Filip Jicha
2013 – Domagoj Duvnjak
2014 – Nikola Karabatic
2015 – Nikola Karabatic
2016 – Mikkel Hansen
2017 – Arpad Sterbik
2018 – Sander Sagosen
2019 – Mikkel Hansen
2020 – Sander Sagosen
2021 – Mikkel Hansen
2022 – Jim Gottfridsson
2023 – Mathias Gidsel
2024 – Mathias Gidsel

Based on 10 years of our project Handball-Planet.com organized WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER OF THE DECADE CONTEST

WORLD HANDBALL PLAYER 2025 – PARTNERS

MASTERS HANDBALL WORLD CUP– mhworldcup.com