The 33rd General Assembly of FCH took place on the fringes of the EHF EURO 2026 in Billund/Denmark. The assembly confirmed the application of Hyderabad/India to become member of FCH. Heartily welcome!
Category Archives: IHF
The German Handball Federation (DHB) announced the candidacy of Gerd Butzeck for the position as IHF President on 5th April 2025.
The IHF elections will take place in Cairo/Egypt on 20th December 2025. Butzeck will be temporarily suspended from his duties as Managing Director FCH and for the period from 20th Sept till 20th December 2025.
During the 31st FCH General Assembly, celebrated in Oslo on the fringes of the IHF World Championship, the clubs dealt with the IHF Regulations for Transfers between Federations, Article 9, § 2: … A player may only conclude a contract with another club if the player’s contract with his/her existing club has twelve months or less remaining. …
The Clubs discussed the regulation and regard it to be neither legal, nor realistic. Accordingly FCH will approach EHF/IHF to delete this regulation.
During the last ordinary FCH Board meeting, taking place in Spain 7th/8th October 2024, the FCH Boards (men and women) decided to put the support for US Team Handball on hold.
FCH does not agree to the circumstances, surrounding the resignation of the USTH Managing Director Martin Branick and the decision to appoint Michael King as his successor.
FCH informed the International Handball Federation accordingly.
The European Handball Agents Association (EHAA) and FCH signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the beginning of the 30th General Assembly of FCH, celebrated in Cologne on the fringes of the EHF TRUCKSCOUT24 Champions League F4 on 9th June 2024.
The MoU underlines that the IHF Regulations on transfers have to be applied. In particular FCH member clubs shall operate with licensed agents only. The agents agreed to charge their clients which are usually the players (but may also be the clubs).
On the picture from left to the right: Women FCH President Zolt Ákos Jeney, Men FCH President Xavier O’Callaghan, EHAA President Marko Boskovic, EHAA Chairman of the Board Andrej Golic, FCH Managing Director Gerd Butzeck.
For the first time ever Forum Club Handball will celebrate a General Assembly with participants from 5 continents. The fist non-European club to enter FCH was ‘The worlds Handball club New York City’ (America), followed by Detroit, Zeekstar Tokyo (Asia), CalHeats San Francisco, University Sydney (Australia). For the first time ever an African Club will join the meeting: Famous SC Zamalek from Egypt will be confirmed as new member during the meeting on 9th June in Cologne.
The first ever Australian team becomes member of Forum Club Handball. The multiple participant of the IHF Super Globe SYDNEY UNI HANDBALL signed the membership documents and was accepted by the FCH Board.
Accordingly at the moment FCH has members from America, Asia, Australia and Europe. Further expansion to Africa is to be expected.
The Danish TV Station TV published a documentary on match-fixing in Handball on 5th July (part I) and 12th July 2023 (part II).
Match-fixing can not be accepted by any sports bodies, as it harms the integrity and therefore the basis of any sports. This holds true for IHF, EHF, National Federations, Leagues, Clubs, match officials, team officials, referees and players.
FCH requests its member clubs on regular basis to follow the rules of EHF and National Federations, prohibiting betting of players and team officials on the outcome of Handball matches.
Attempts of match-fixing shall be reported to EHF or anonymously to https://report.whistleb.com/ehf. The link to the reporting platform is not available via the EHF website as this could allow tracking of individual IP addresses and the potential identification of the individual.
SPORTRADAR is a company monitoring the betting market on behalf of the various stakeholders, ie Federations, Leagues and Betting companies. In 2018 SPORTRADAR produced a report on suspicious betting activities/match-fixing in Handball.
The report says itself that it does not contain any proofs for match-fixing in European Handball. Anyhow it contains indications on suspicious referees/refereeing.
The report was discussed on various levels in EHF and FCH. It was agreed to
- present the materials to the Austrian police authorities
- professionalize the EHF refereeing system
- present the materials to the internal EHF legal system
Concerning 1.: The Austrian authorities provided the materials to Europol for further investigation.
Concerning 2: EHF and FCH started to discuss changes in the refereeing system. One of the outcomes of these discussion was the decision that as of the season 19/20 the EHF Competitions Committee member Refereeing Dragan Nachevski was no longer responsible for the nominations of referees in European Cup competitions.
Concerning 3: The matches were analyzed by EHF and FCH experts without finding indications for match fixing. As there were no proofs, no legal case was opened in 2018/19.
FCH wants to underline that all decisions were taken jointly. During the whole period a permanent exchange of information between the EHF and FCH took place.
FCH welcomed and supported the steps, taken by EHF.
The core of the documentary is a conversation in January 2020 between the former EHF Competitions Commission member Refereeing Dragan Nachevski and an actor, pretending to be a chinese business man with interests to register a Chinese Handball team in SEHA league. The conversation was recorded by TV2 with a hidden camera.
During the conversation the actor/businessman makes attempts to involve Nachevski in match-fixing. The attempts are denied by Nachevski.
At the same time Nachevski continues speaking to the actor/businessman in a friendly manner. He did not inform the European Handball Federation about the conversation for three years.
EHF received of a video copy of the conversation from TV2 on 23rd May 2023. The Executive Committee of EHF decided to release Nachevski from his in duties in an extraordinary meeting with immediate effect only two days later – on 25th May 2023. The Court of Handball opened a case against Nachevski.
FCH welcomes the decision of the EHF Executive Committee.
At the same time FCH wants to underline that a European body like the EHF can not and should not take measures on the basis of unproven allegations. EHF acted consequently and transparently at all times.
FCH calls on EHF to take all necessary measures to avoid match-fixing in the future.
The FCH Board confirmed the membership of Detroit HC during its ordinary Boardmeeting in October 2022. Accordingly Detroit HC became the second ‘non-European’ member club of FCH! Heartily welcome, Joe Williams!
FCH intends to add further clubs from Africa, North- and South America, Asia and Australia to the organization in the future. The membership is free of charge.
IHF and FCH will sign the prolongation of the Partnership Agreement in Sweden on occasion of the final weekend of the IHF World Championship. An according agreement was reached between the Presidents of IHF, Dr. Hassan Moustafa, men’s FCH Xavier O’Callaghan and women’s FCH Zsolt Ákos Jeney. The signing will be exectuted during the 27th General Assembly of Forum Club Handball on 28th January 2023. The invitations to the 27th GA will be delivered to the FCH member clubs end of October 2022.