First meeting for new Nations Board

The newly-constituted Nations Board met at the EHF headquarters in Vienna on Monday, 13 October 2014.

Elected at the EHF Congress in Dublin in September, the body represents the interests of the member federations within the structure of the EHF, and comprises: Francisco Sanchez (ESP); Morten Stig Christiansen (DEN); Heiner Brand (GER); Philippe Bana (FRA); Marek Goralczyk (POL) and Stephen Neilson (GBR).

Also in attendance at the meeting were Jean Brihault, EHF President, and Michael Wiederer, EHF Secretary General.

The Nations Board nominated Denmark’s Morten Stig Christiansen to continue as chair of the body, and additionally put forward Philippe Bana from France to continue to represent the Nations Board on the Professional Handball Board.

The Board agreed that Marek Goralczyk from Poland should sit on the working group charged with dealing with examining changes to the statutes of the EHF.

Over its two-year period of office, the Nations Board will focus on national team competitions, and discussed previous and upcoming competitions including the Women’s EHF EURO 2014 in Hungary and Croatia, the Men’s EHF EURO 2016 in Poland as well as events in 2018 and 2020 allocated by Congress.

A key point for discussion was the development of a new qualification system involving 44 teams for the Men’s EHF EURO from 2020, when the final tournament will expand from 16 to 24 teams and be organised in three nations.