Germany tops the new men's club ranking for 2015/16

The European Handball Federation has released the new EHF Ranking List for the men's continental club competitions in the 2015/16 season.

Germany tops the ranking with 167,29 points well ahead of Spain (105,86) as both countries can automatically claim two places in the 2015/16 VELUX EHF Champions League season. France has maintained third place, while Hungary moved to the fourth overtaking both Denmark and Slovenia.

Finland recorded the biggest rise of all member federations by moving from 43rd to 37th place, while Sweden and Slovakia moved up by five ranks to 9th and 19th place respectively. On the other hand Russia made the deepest drop by falling by eight places from 7th to 15th.

There is no basic change in the area of the distribution of places to the EHF member federations in the different competitions. As always the distribution is a result of the EHF Ranking List which is a summary of the results in all three EHF club competitions of the seasons 2011/12, 2012/13 and 2013/14

The current season is not considered for the EHF Ranking List, but it will be considered in June 2015 for the seeding of the new participants in the various competitions of 2015/16.

The procedure for the awarding of additional places is planned to remain unchanged to last season. Therefore each federation will have the right to ask for an additional place in the VELUX EHF Champions League and it is also planned to once again have the possibility to request an upgrade from the Challenge Cup to the EHF Cup.

The VELUX EHF Champions League will reform its playing system for the new season and the EHF approved a list of criteria that will be used as a tool to define on the one hand the awarding of additional places for those federations who will ask for it and on the other hand for the decision regarding the distribution of teams into groups A or B (8 teams each) respectively C or D (6 teams each). The criteria list consists of eight different fields (venue, TV, ranking in the domestic league, spectators, performance in past EHF club competitions, sponsoring potential, implementation of duties and regulations and new media).

Based on these criteria the EHF Executive Committee meeting on 19 June 2015 will decide all additional places requests as well as seeding for Groups A and B, respectively Groups C and D.