For the first time ever the European Handball Federation organised “Free Throw – the EHF handball talk” with former top players on the fringes of the VELUX EHF FINAL4 in Cologne.

 

The Swedish legends Staffan Olsson and Tomas Svensson, German world champion Christian Schwarzer and French former player and current TV expert Francois Houlet discussed ways to improve and promote handball in Europe in this discussion, moderated by Thomas Schöneich, member of the EHF Media department.

 

All four experts had focused on different departments, but all agreed that handball is in a good way. “Handball is a highly attractive TV sport and it has been rising steeply for some years,” said Olsson, current coach of the Swedish men’s national team and former world and European champion.

 

“We need a very close cooperation of all stakeholders involved in handball to improve,” Svensson added, who is unsatisfied on one point: “I have three children, none of them play handball.”

 

Christian Schwarzer, who is the youth programme coordinator and youth national team coach in the German handball federation hopes that handball in the future can do more to attract young players: “We need the base, so we have to go to schools and involve the teachers. Or we need some formats to install handball as a street sport or fun sport.

 

"The peak of our talents is strong, but we need more young players in future. And we have to make sure that they keep the feet on the ground and don’t get pushed to be a star too early.”

 

Olsson agreed that young players need more time for their development: “Some of our talents leave Sweden too early to earn more money. They should stay longer to develop further.”

 

Svensson, Olson and Houlet pointed out that especially on the club side the structures need to be professionalised: “The clubs should invest in one player less and use the money and time for infrastructure development,” Houlet said, while Olsson added: “Or for the marketing.”

 

To promote handball on a wider scale, all four mentioned that the development needs to be forced European-wide, not only in single countries. And finally Houlet said: “You cannot compare football and handball, those are two different worlds.”