Sunday, February 10, 2013

Emerging nations, IHF and petrodollars

Let us face it, handball is not a truly global sport.Why should I say that? Well have a look at how European and non European teams performed at the recent men's World Championship.A plethora of old continent squads battled it up from the 16th round accompanied by Brasil and Tunisia.Can we truly call the IHF championship, a world championship or perhaps should the International federation reconsider the format of the tournament?
In my opinion the IHF should either decrease the number of teams partecipating or as suggested by some analysts to go back to the old version of the tournament split in three groups (A,B,C). If I had to choose I would rather decrease the partecipating teams,mainly from Europe but I would insist with allocating a place to "Emerging" European nations like : Uk,Italy,Greece in the tournament.
I know,most likely the quality of the game could get worse ' leaving out traditional handball countries;but honestly how longer the Ihf will be able to neglect and leave out from the world championships such markets?
The same would apply to other continents,like North America and Sub Saharan Africa with developing handball nations like Usa and South Africa.
Can you imagine a World Championship matches broadcast by ESPN or NBC in US and by SABC or Supersport in South Africa?
Well dear Mr Hassan,it is about time that your people sit together and create a real strategy which will help those developing handball nations to get stronger at an international level.Perhaps some Quatari petrodollars should end into a "Development"fund to use for this goal instead to channel them into the organisation of that meaningless Super Globe tournament which at the end of the day makes only the IHF, organisers and winning/partecipating teams richer.

No comments:

Post a Comment