ShoeFlo
Well-known member
Next month the world cup begins but meanwhile lots of changes happened and most of them reflect discredit on the International Handball Federation
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates wirthdrew arguably due to political reasons (it's not sure though). Consequently these teams should have been replaced by two Asian teams but instead the federation decided to give one of the free places to Iceland which is great for me as a fan but totally pointless from an objective point of view
Fair enough, giving the place to an European team is positive for the quality of the tournament, but the question is: Why Iceland?
When they looked for a replace for Australia a half year ago they choose Germany, because this were the best placed team from the World Cup 2013 which didn't manage to qualify. So far, so good.
But the reason for Iceland's wild card was their 5th place in this years Euro... that smells like arbitirariness. As the president of the IHF I gotta take either the WC 2013 ranking as a factor or the Euro 2014. But not such a mixture...
I forgot to mention that the other free place was given to Saudi Arabia (6th placed team of the Asia qualification) and not to South Korea (5th placed team!). The IHF didn't explain that, everything is untransparent.
It's not a secret that Germany got a wild card because it's the most important Handball association and usually the TV ratings of handball competitions here are relatively high... That means good profit for IHF.
Now a funny fact: German television channels ARD & ZDF didn't even ensure the rights for broadcasting the Handball WC
Maybe Sport1 will ensure the rights, that's actually the only alternative, but anyway that's a big fail for the IHF
Nonetheless I will follow the competition because I like this sport, even if I have to watch the matches on internet
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates wirthdrew arguably due to political reasons (it's not sure though). Consequently these teams should have been replaced by two Asian teams but instead the federation decided to give one of the free places to Iceland which is great for me as a fan but totally pointless from an objective point of view
Fair enough, giving the place to an European team is positive for the quality of the tournament, but the question is: Why Iceland?
When they looked for a replace for Australia a half year ago they choose Germany, because this were the best placed team from the World Cup 2013 which didn't manage to qualify. So far, so good.
But the reason for Iceland's wild card was their 5th place in this years Euro... that smells like arbitirariness. As the president of the IHF I gotta take either the WC 2013 ranking as a factor or the Euro 2014. But not such a mixture...
I forgot to mention that the other free place was given to Saudi Arabia (6th placed team of the Asia qualification) and not to South Korea (5th placed team!). The IHF didn't explain that, everything is untransparent.
It's not a secret that Germany got a wild card because it's the most important Handball association and usually the TV ratings of handball competitions here are relatively high... That means good profit for IHF.
Now a funny fact: German television channels ARD & ZDF didn't even ensure the rights for broadcasting the Handball WC
Maybe Sport1 will ensure the rights, that's actually the only alternative, but anyway that's a big fail for the IHF
Nonetheless I will follow the competition because I like this sport, even if I have to watch the matches on internet
Not even gonna comment that German favouritism..
What happened, have they got wild card or sth?
