Official playing schedule for Women’s EHF EURO 2018 released
Following a confirmation by the EHF Executive Meeting at its meeting in Zagreb on 23 June, the official match schedule for the Women’s EHF EURO 2018 has been released.
Compared to previous Women’s EHF EURO events, there are two major changes. The final tournament will start already on 29 November (instead of 30 November) with a match of hosts France at 21:00 hrs in Group B as the event’s official opener.
Matches then have been scheduled for 18:00 and 21:00 hrs respectively on weekdays and for 15:00 and 18:00 hrs respectively on the weekend in the preliminary round.
The longer gap between the matches and the allocation of throw-off times 17 months ahead of the final tournament allows for the sale of individual match tickets rather than tickets that are valid for the entire day as in previous EHF EUROs.
Ticket sales for the Women's EHF EURO 2018 will start in September this year.
The same match schedule applies to the main round. On days when three matches are being played, the first match starts at 15:45 hrs, the second at 18:00 hrs and the third at 21:00 hrs.
The semi-finals take place on Friday, 14 December at 18:00 and 21:00 hrs in Paris; the match for third place throws off at 15:00 hrs on Sunday, 16 December, the final at 18:00 hrs the same day.
Download the playing schedule
A debut for France
It is the first time that France hosts an EHF EURO event.
The qualification phase will be played with seven groups of four teams each between September 2017 and June 2018.
|
Group 1 |
Group 2 |
Group 3 |
Group 4 |
Group 5 |
Group 6 |
Group 7 |
|
Norway |
Montenegro |
Sweden |
Romania |
Denmark |
Spain |
Netherlands |
|
Croatia |
Poland |
Serbia |
Russia |
Czech Republic |
Germany |
Hungary |
|
Ukraine |
Slovakia |
FYR Macedonia |
Austria |
Slovenia |
Turkey |
Belarus |
|
Switzerland |
Italy |
Faroe Islands |
Portugal |
Iceland |
Lithuania |
Kosovo |
The top two teams of each group as well as the best third-ranked team overall will join hosts France at the final tournament. To determine the best third-ranked team, only the matches played against the teams ranked first and second will be taken into account.
The final tournament takes place from 29 November to 16 December 2018. The host cities for the event are Nancy, Nantes, Montbéliard, Brest and Paris.
The French capital will host the final weekend with the semi-finals on 14 December and the finals on 16 December, which will all be played in the AccorHotels Arena in the suburb of Bercy.
TEXT:
EHF / ts