28 teams vie for nine qualifying spots

The draw for the European qualification groups for the 2013 Men’s U21 World Championship will take place in Vienna, Austria, on 21 September 2012 at approximately 18:00 hrs.

31 European nations have registered to compete in the event, which will be played in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 14 to 28 July 2013.

Three nations have already qualified: the event’s host Bosnia and Herzegovina, the winners of the 2012 Men’s 20 European Championships, Spain, and runners up, Croatia.

A total of 28 nations will play in the Qualification Europe for the event. Qualification tournaments will be played 4 to 6 January 2013.

Draw procedure

There will be seven groups with four teams in each group. Nine teams will qualify for the final tournament in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Two teams will qualify from groups 1 + 2; one team will qualify from group 3 – 7.

The 28 teams are seeded based on the ranking of the 2012 Men’s 20 European Championships and the 2012 Men’s 20 European Championships Qualification tournaments.

Slovenia and Sweden are already placed in row 1 of groups 1 + 2.

Pot 1: Portugal, Norway, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Denmark, Iceland

Pot 2: Poland, Czech Republic, France, Serbia, Turkey

Pot 3: Belarus, Finland, Hungary, Israel, Montenegro, Netherlands, Slovakia

Pot 4: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Romania, Ukraine

The complete draw procedure can be downloaded here.

Follow the draw live

The draw can be followed via eurohandball.com and the LIVE TICKER pop-up.

The EHF Media and Communications team will also be tweeting live from the draw via the @EHFMedia Twitter Channel.