Record number of nations register for EHF EURO 2014

Thirty nine nations, including the event organisers Denmark, have registered to take part in the Men’s EHF European Championship.

Qualification will be played in two phases, with Phase 1 to be played in tournament format at one venue from Friday 8 June to Sunday 10 June 2012

Phase 2 will be played in a home and away format, seven groups of four teams in six qualification rounds.

Teams are playing for fifteen places, Denmark qualifying by right as organiser. The defending champions, in this case also Denmark, no longer receive a place from 2014.

The ‘fifteenth team’ will be decided from the third best ranked team in the qualifications groups. Only the matches against the first and second placed teams in each group taken into consideration.

A total of 22 teams directly qualified for the Qualification Phase 2, the four teams having qualified directly for the 2013 World Championship final tournament (Serbia, Croatia, Spain and France) and all those teams already qualified for the 2013 World Championship Qualification Europe Play-offs.

These are (in alphabetical order): AUT, BIH, BLR, CRO, CZE, ESP, FRA, GER, HUN, ISL, LTU, MKD, MNE, NED, NOR, POL, POR, RUS, SLO, SRB, SVK, SWE.

The draw for Phase 1 is scheduled for 27 March 2012 in Vienna, Austria and for Phase 2 on 20 April 2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Procedure for the draw of the Qualification - Phase 1
Date: 27 March 2012 Time: 10:30 hrs. (local time) Venue: “Das Turm”, Vienna

Qualification Phase 1:

The 16 registered teams for the EHF EURO 2014 Qualification Phase 1 are (in alphabetical order):
BEL, CYP, EST, FIN, GBR, GRE, ISR, IRL, ITA, LAT, LUX, MLT, ROU, SUI, UKR, TUR.

Phase 1 will be played in 4 groups of 4 teams.

The winners of each group and the two best ranked second teams of all four groups will qualify for Phase 2 of the EHF EURO 2014 Qualification (in total 6 teams).

The 16 teams are seeded based on the EHF National Team Ranking valid for the EHF EURO 2014 Qualification:
4 Teams in pot 1:  UKR, GRE, ROU, EST 
4 Teams in pot 2:  SUI, ISR, LAT, CYP   
4 Teams in pot 3:  FIN, TUR, BEL, ITA
4 Teams in pot 4:  LUX, GBR, IRL, MLT

Procedure:

Step 1:  4 teams of pot 4 to row 4
Step 2:  4 teams of pot 3 to row 3
Step 3:  4 teams of pot 2 to row 2
Step 4:  4 teams of pot 1 to row 1             

Step 5:  The draw of the teams having the right to organise the qualification tournament.

The matches will be played in form of tournaments at one weekend at one venue each (Friday 8 June to Sunday 10 June 2012).

Download an overview of the EHF EURO 2014 Phase 1 Qualification Draw procedure can be downloaded here.