Voting has closed for the 2025 IHF World Player of the Year awards, and the winners are set to be revealed on Friday, 13 February, at 12:00 CET. After an intense voting period featuring strong participation from fans around the world and national team coaches, the final tallies have been compiled and the four new World Players of the Year are now decided.

This year again, the awards followed the balanced voting system introduced in 2023. The final result in each category is determined in three equal parts: one‑third from the fan vote, one‑third from the national team coaches who led their teams at the 2025 IHF Men’s and Women’s World Championships, and one‑third from the IHF Commission of Coaching and Methods (CCM). With a large number of votes registered on ihf.info up to 23:59 CET on Tuesday, 10 February, the voice of the supporters weighed just as much as that of the world’s top coaches and experts.

In each of the four categories, three nominees were selected by a CCM panel based solely on their performances in the 2025 calendar year. Matches and competitions played in early 2026 did not influence the process, ensuring that the awards reflect a clear, season‑based evaluation.

For the 2025 IHF Female World Player of the Year, the finalists were Bruna de Paula Almeida (Brazil), Henny Reistad (Norway) and Katrine Lunde (Norway), each of them having delivered outstanding campaigns for club and country. In the race for the 2025 IHF Male World Player of the Year, the three nominees are Ivan Martinović (Croatia), Mathias Gidsel (Denmark) and Emil Nielsen (Denmark), all key figures at the highest level of international handball.

The future of the sport is recognised through the young player categories. The 2025 IHF Young Female World Player of the Year shortlist featured Nina Dury (France), Julie Scaglione (Denmark) and Viola Leuchter (Germany), while Óli Mittún (Faroe Islands), Francisco Costa (Portugal) and Nikola Roganović (Sweden) are the contenders for the 2025 IHF Young Male World Player of the Year.

With fan engagement at a high level and the coaches’ and experts’ votes now counted, all eyes turn to Friday’s announcement at 12:00 CET, when the four winners will officially be unveiled.