Germany leads the new men's club ranking for 2017/18

Yet again Germany maintains the long-term leading position in the new EHF Ranking List for the men's continental club competitions in the 2017/18 season.

In the ranking released by the European Handball Federation following the completion of the 2015/16 season Germany (139,83) is leading by twenty points ahead of Hungary (119,83) which made it to the top two for the first time in history after climbing by four spots within three years.

Powered mainly by successful campaigns of Veszprem, which reached the VELUX EHF Champions League Final for two straight years Hungary has overtaken Spain, which is ranked below top two for the first time ever.

France has remained on the fourth place, while Poland moved to the fifth swapping places with Denmark.

Iceland and Netherlands recorded the biggest rise of all member federations as they both moved upwards by nine places – the former from 32nd to 23rd place, while the latter from 36th to 27th place. On the other hand Luxembourg made the deepest drop by falling by nine places down to 30th rank.

Germany and Hungary can automatically claim two places in the 2017/18 VELUX EHF Champions League season and another three in the Men’s EHF Cup.

The federations from 3 to 7 can field one team in the top flight and three in the EHF Cup, while members from 8 to 13 can claim one place in the Champions League, two in the EHF Cup and one in the Challenge Cup.

One place in the premium club competition is guaranteed for each of another 14 federations (ranks 14-27), who can also get one team in the EHF Cup and two in the Challenge Cup.

Countries ranked 28-40 have one team in the EHF Cup and three in the third-tier, while all remaining member federations have just four places in the Challenge Cup as they did not take part in any competitions in the previous three seasons.

The EHF Ranking list is the main criteria for distribution of places to the EHF member federations in the different competitions. The newest ranking list is a summary of results in all three EHF club competitions of the seasons 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16.

In addition each federation has the right to ask for an upgrade from a lower-tier competition to the higher – either from the EHF Cup to the VELUX EHF Champions League or from the Challenge Cup to the EHF Cup.