Motion No 1 was the most discussed topic of the 10th ordinary Congress of the European Handball Federation (EHF), held in Copenhagen/DEN. Several times in the past an EHF Congress refused to give influence to clubs on the development of professional European handball.
A 2/3rd majority was needed to approve the ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ (MoU) – signed by Forum Club Handball (FCH) and EHF already in May 2010 – and to implement the Professional Handball Board (PHB) into the statutes of EHF.
EHF Vice-President Jean Brihault/FRA who lead the negotiations with the club organization on behalf of EHF, explained the motion to the congress in detail. When the discussion was opened, to the surprise of the club representatives present, the President of the International Handball Federation (IHF) Dr. Hassan Moustafa was the first to take the floor.
‘Although I am not allowed to give you advice….’ Moustafa started with congratulations for the ‘good and well prepared motion’. He continued to speak in high terms about MoU and PHB and recommended to ‘stop the war’ and unify resources for the competition with other sports. Already in his opening speech at the beginning of the congress Moustafa explained to the participants that ‘we (IHF) follow the way of the EHF’ in the handling of club matters. He informed that on 17.9.2010 IHF announced payments to clubs for release of players to the World Championship (WCH) in Sweden 2011 and the introduction of an insurance fund in order to compensate clubs in case of player injuries. GB