NEW DELHI: India will host the 10th edition of the Asian Women’s Youth Handball Championship in 2023, the sport’s global governing body – International Handball Federation (IHF) – announced on Wednesday.
The Handball Association of India (HAI) will have the exclusive rights to host the championship as the only recognised national body affiliated to the IHF and Asian Handball Federation (AHF), announced IHF’s vice-president Badar Mohammad Al Tayyab.
The 10-day long event will be organised in Noida from July 23 to August 1 next year, after the ‘host city’ agreement was signed between the IHF and HAI’s executive director Anandeshwar Panday, in the presence of AHF’s technical director, Mohamed Yusuf Taleb.
Ten teams, including defending champions South Korea and hosts India, will participate in the competition, which will double up as an automatic qualifier for the World Youth Women’s Handball Championship, scheduled to be staged in Denmark, Norway and Sweden from November 30 to December 17, 2023.
The other eight participating nations are Japan, China, ChineseTaipei, Iran, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
“The HAI, currently chaired by Jagan Mohan Rao, is the only federation recognised by the IHF and AHF to manage the sport of handball in India as the sole national handball federation in the country in compliance with the IHF Statutes. We don’t recognise any other federation running its affairs in India concurrently.
Both the IHF and AHF would like to urge the Indian sports ministry to grant recognition to the HAI at the earliest,” Al Tayyab told TOI on Wednesday.
