Referees and delegates join forces in preparation for EHF EURO

More than four months before the start of the 2014 EHF EURO the 16 referee couples and 28 delegates met in Vienna on Friday to take part in the premiere edition of a joint preparation course for the continental championship in Denmark. The combined seminar organised by the EHF Competence Academy & Network (CAN) serves not only as an ideas exchanging platform, but also as a part of game officials team-building.

"For the first time in the EHF history in officiating with have a combined course of top referees preparing for EHF EURO in Denmark together with already nominated delegates for this championship,“ Helmut Höritsch, the EHF CAN coordinator said.

"The objective is clear. It has always been a clear wish from the referees side to at least meet delegates prior to the tournaments in order to facilitate the team-building to discuss the common understanding of on and off court officiating which is important in the game administration and in special situations that only happen in top level handball.“

EHF Referee Seminar and EHF Delegate Proficiency Course run parallely with several joint and several separate lectures.

"It was past time that we work together with referees and delegates, because we can say we are one team during the match. It is really nice to work together and create a common line for next EHF EURO in Denmark,“ said Dragan Nachevski, the chairman of the Technical Refereeing Committee and one of the lecturer, who also presented the new teaching toolbox created by specialists from Las Palmas University. "I am very glad with this new teaching tool, I think EHF has deserved it a lot,“ he added.

"I think we can benefit a lot from it because it is very necessery to have a common opinion about special situations. We can gain a lot of help through this new project and I think it will go both ways, for delegates as well,“ the Danish referee Mads Hansen said.