The International Handball Federation (IHF) has today announced the hosts for the 2029 and 2031 editions of its men’s and women’s World Championships.
During an IHF council meeting in Créteil, France, the governing body awarded the 2029 Men’s World Championship to France and Germany, while Denmark, Iceland, and Norway have been chosen to jointly stage the 2031 tournament.
The IHF tendered the hosting rights for the two events in April 2023.
The council members voted unanimously from the final bidders chosen by the IHF.
Germany co-hosted the IHF World Championships in 2019, alongside Denmark, as well as in 2007, and will host the 2027 edition of the event. Pre-reunification, West Germany and East Germany had hosted the event twice each, while the inaugural World Championship event was hosted in Nazi Germany in 1938.
France is the most successful team in the history of the IHF World Championships, meanwhile, having won the event six times, and has also hosted it thrice, most recently in 2017.
Joint bids to host the biennial event have become more common in recent years, allowing more national handball federations the chance to stage games.
Besides 2019, which saw record attendance, the event was also recently co-hosted in 2023 by Poland and Sweden, and in 2025 will be jointly held by Croatia, Denmark, and Norway – the first time it will be organized in three countries.
Denmark and Iceland have solely staged the men's event once previously in 1978 and 1995, respectively, while Norway has never hosted the competition and will now be among the host nations for two of the next four editions.
Meanwhile, the 2029 IHF Women’s World Championship will be held in Spain, with the 2031 event to be staged in Czechia and Poland.
Spain will host the competition for the second time after staging it in 2021.
The 2031 championships will be the fourth co-hosted by two countries and the fifth co-hosted by multiple countries.
Czechia has hosted the competition once, in 1978, as Czechoslovakia, while Poland will host the women’s event for the first time.
The 2025 IHF Women’s World Championship will take place in Germany and the Netherlands, while the 2027 tournament is set to be played in Hungary.
Hassan Moustafa, the IHF's President, said: “The interest for the IHF World Championship has been getting bigger and bigger in the last years and the fact that big handball countries like the ones which were awarded the hosting rights are still interested in hosting only means that handball is growing as a sport throughout the world.”
