2021 World Men's Handball Championship


The 2021 IHF World Men's Handball Championship will be the 27th event hosted by the International Handball Federation and held in Egypt from 14 to 31 January 2021.
This will be the first Handball Championship with 32 teams instead of 24. This will be the third championship hosted in Africa and second in Egypt. It's the first championship to be hosted outside of Europe since 2015. Denmark will be the defending champions after winning for the first time in 2019 on home soil.

Bidding process

Seven nations initially expressed interest in hosting the tournament:
However until the bidding phase expired on 15 April 2015 only three nations entered documents to bid for this event:
A decision was scheduled for 4 June 2015, but the Congress was moved to 6 November 2015. Egypt was chosen as the host.

Format

The new format will see 32 teams split in eight groups of four teams each. Top three teams from each group will progress to the main round while the teams ranked last in their preliminary round groups play the President's Cup. The 24 main round teams are divided into four groups of six teams each. The top-two teams from each group will advance to the quarterfinals.

Venues

Following is a list of all venues and host cities which will be used.

Qualification

As is the case until now, the World Championship organizer will be directly qualified, along with the reigning world champions.
Following decision about increasing number of participating teams, changes are about to be done in the distribution of places by Continental Confederations. The number of compulsory places awarded to each Continental Confederation is increased as follows: four places each for Africa, Asia, Europe.
Starting from this tournament Pan America will be split into two zones: the North America and Caribbean Zone, having one compulsory place and the South and Central America Zone having three compulsory places. There will also be a South and Central American Men's Last Chance Qualification Tournament which will provide a space for the winning team.
One additional place was available for Oceania, but only in the case where that national team ranked fifth or higher at the Asian Championship. Since no Oceania team placed among the top five at the Asian Championship, the IHF awarded an additional wild card.
In addition, there will be 12 performance places for the Continental Confederations, which are based on the teams ranked 1–12 of the preceding World Championship.
According to the new qualification system and taking into consideration the results of the 2019 Men’s World Championship, 32 places are distributed as follows:
CompetitionDatesHostVacanciesQualified
Host nation6 November 2015 Sochi1
2019 World Championship10–27 January 2019
1
2020 European Championship9–26 January 2020
3
2020 African Championship16–26 January 20206
2020 Asian Championship16–27 January 2020 Kuwait City4
2020 South and Central American Men's Handball Championship21–25 January 2020 Maringá3
2020 Nor.ca. Men's Handball ChampionshipTBD Mexico City1
2020 South and Central American Handball Last Chance Qualification Tournament19–25 October 2020 San Salvador1
European qualification23 October 2019 – 5 July 2020 Various 10
Wild card9 July 2020—1 + 1

1. Since countries from Oceania participating in the Asian Championships did not finish within the top five, they did not qualify for the World Championship. Since they will be placed sixth or lower, the place will transfer to the wild card spot.
2. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the South and North American qualification tournaments will be played at a later date. The IHF Council decided to extend the deadline for the organisation of the remaining qualification tournaments until 31 October 2020.
3. Because the european qualification was cancelled, the final ranking of the 2020 European Men's Handball Championship was used to determine the particiapnts.

Qualified teams

Draw

The final draw will be held on 5 September 2020.

Seeding

On 23 July 2020, the pots were announced.
Pot 1Pot 2Pot 3Pot 4



















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