The long journey to the 25th IHF
Women’s World Championship in November and December 2019 in Japan has begun, as
the home rights draw for the first stage of European qualification took place
in Vienna this week. The European qualification is separated into two stages,
with a round-robin group phase serving as stage one, before the double header play-off
matches decide nine of the continent’s World Championship places.
For the first phase, 16 teams
were drawn into groups of four, with the home rights for each group announced
on Tuesday. Playing in Group 1, Slovakia, Kosovo, Ukraine and Israel had
already come to an agreement that Slovakia would be the hosts. Therefore, the
draw concerned only groups 2, 3 and 4.
The first rights for Group 2,
consisting of Switzerland, Faroe Islands, Lithuania and Finland, went to
Switzerland, while the second went to Faroe Islands. In Group 3, featuring
Belarus, Italy, Portugal and Greece, the first rights went to Greece and the
second to Portugal. Turkey, FYR Macedonia, Iceland and Azerbaijan will play
from Group 4, where the first rights were awarded to FYR Macedonia, the second
to Iceland and the third to Turkey.
Groups 1, 2 and 4 will play their
qualification events between November 30 and December 2 this year, while Group
3 will play from November 23 to 25. The top-ranked team from each group, as
well as the best second-ranked side overall, will qualify for the play-offs.
There they will join 13 other teams in the battle for the nine places at Japan
2019, with the play-offs scheduled to take place in June.
Only two nations that will
contest the 2019 World Championship are already known: hosts Japan and 2017
world champions France. Three more European places will be decided at the EHF
EURO 2018 in France this November and December.
More information on the European qualification phase for Japan 2019
can be found on the official
website of the EHF.