No less than 36 national teams have entered the Women’s EHF EURO 2022 Qualifiers.

Four teams - defending champions Norway as well as co-hosts Slovenia, North Macedonia and Montenegro - will proceed directly to the 16-team finals tournament on 4-20 November 2022.

That leaves 32 teams having to battle it out for the 12 remaining spots.

Draw for EHF EURO 2022 Qualifiers set for 25 March

A total of 21 teams are going straight to the EHF EURO 2022 Qualifiers, which will be contested over six groups of four teams between October 2021 and April 2022, with the top two of each group advancing to the finals tournament.

Those 21 teams, based on the EHF women’s national team ranking, are: Netherlands, Russia, France, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Croatia, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Belarus, Switzerland, Slovakia, Iceland, Turkey, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

The draw for the EHF EURO 2022 Qualifiers will take place on Thursday 25 March 2021 at 11:00 CET in Vienna. The draw procedure for the qualifiers can be downloaded here.

Draw for qualification phase 1 scheduled for 17 March

The three remaining spots in the qualifiers will go to the winners of the three tournaments in phase 1 of the qualification.

The 11 teams starting in this phase 1 are: Faroe Islands, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Kosovo, Israel, Finland, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, and Latvia.

These teams will be drawn in three groups: two of four teams, one of three teams. The winner of each group will advance to the EHF EURO 2022 Qualifiers starting in October 2021.

The draw for phase 1 will take place on Wednesday 17 March 2021 at 11:00 CET in Vienna. The draw procedure for phase 1 can be downloaded here.

Additional national team week from 31 May-6 June

An additional national team week has become necessary for those phase 1 tournaments, since the European qualification for the IHF World Championship 2021 has been postponed from December 2020 to March 2021.

The dates for this national team week have been set to 31 May through 6 June.

Photo © 2020 Jozo Cabraja | kolektiff