The 20th General Assembly of FORUM CLUB HANDBALL took place on the fringes of the IHF World Championship 2019 in Hamburg on 26th January 2019.
As a guest IHF President Dr. Hassan Moustafa welcomed the representatives from 45 European top clubs from 22 countries. He congratulated Germany for the good organization of the tournament and Denmark/Norway which played the best handball and deserved to be in the final on Sunday. The President put emphasis on the global situation in handball and underlined the important role of China and USA as developing handball markets. He asked the FCH member clubs to support the according IHF activities.
The FCH members clubs welcomed the organization of the World Championship, but criticized the playing schedule. Many times various teams had to play two matches in two days or 3 matches in four days. The IHF President took note of the concerns of the clubs and promised to take care of this question.
EHF Vice-President Predrag Boskovic also welcomed the club representatives. He underlined the good cooperation between clubs and EHF and the developing implementation of club representatives into the various bodies of EHF.
Having listened to the various reports, the participants elected David Barrufet as new Board member FCH from Spain, replacing Xavier O’Callaghan (both FC Barcelona). Gregor Planteu/Celje was elected President, Peter Leutwyler as Vice-President FCH. As a consequence, the list of the various new FCH office holders reads as follows:
FCH President:
Old: Xavier O’Callaghan
New: Gregor Planteu/Celje
FCH Vice-Presidents:
Old: Dierk Schmäschke + Gregor Planteu
New: Dierk Schmäschke/Flensburg + Peter Leutwyler/Kadetten
FCH Board members:
Old: O‘Callaghan, Schmäschke, Planteu, Szabo, Leutwyler
New: David Baruffet/FC Barcelona, Schmäschke, Planteu, Szabo, Leutwyler
FCH Deputy Board members (no changes):
Teo Storm, Pep Blanchart, Robert Molines, Davor Stojanoski, Stathis Papachartofilis
EHF PHB representatives:
Old: O’Callaghan/Butzeck
New: Planteu/Butzeck
EHF Competitions Commission (no changes).
Emeric Paillasson/Saint Raphael Var
EHFM Steering Committee:
New: Gregor Planteu
EHFM Advisory Board members:
Old: O’Callaghan/Butzeck
New: Leutwyler/Butzeck
EHFM Men’s Club Board members
Old: O’Callaghan, Storm, Martini
New: Szabo/Veszprem, Storm/Kiel, Martini/Paris
EHFM Comptroller:
Old: Peter Leutwyler
New: Gerd Hofele/Göppingen
EHFM Working Group development:
Pep Blanchart/Granollers
Karl Lofmark/Lugi Lund
Magnus Clarke/Dublin
Raul Srugo/Maccabi Rishon Le Zion
The newly elected President underlined the importance of the upcoming months, as the split of the revenues as of season 20/21 has to be agreed between men’s and women’s clubs on the one side, and between new Champions League, European Handball League and new EHF-Cup on the other side.
At the end of the General Assembly the participants elected Xavier O’Callaghan as ‘Honorary President FCH’.