The first days of October will provide some entertaining matches in the business end of the 2024 IHF Men’s Club World Championship, with nine matches remaining in the competition, which will decide the final standings.

The first day of the month will see the two semi-finals played in the New Administrative Capital Hall, where Veszprem HC will take on FC Barcelona, while hosts Al-Ahly play against the reigning champions, SC Magdeburg.

The final and the bronze medal match, as well as the last two Placement Matches, will take place on Thursday, 3 October, when the 17th edition of the world club handball flagship competition is due to finish.

But handball continues with some other highly exciting competitions, but for club teams and for international sides, throughout the whole of October, a month which will mark the start of the countdown for the 2025 IHF Men’s World Championship, with 100 days to go until the start of the competition co-hosted by Croatia, Denmark and Norway on 6 October.

The 45th CAHB African Club Championship will also take place this month, between 10 and 19 October, with 16 men’s teams, including powerhouses like Al-Ahly and Zamalek, and 11 women’s teams, with Angolan sides Petro Atletico and Primero de Agosto at the start.

The competition will be hosted by Morocco, in Laayoun, with both winners decided on the last day, 19 October.

The path towards the 2025 IHF Women’s World Championship starts in Europe with the Qualification Phase 1, which will take place between 25 and 27 October. The 12 lowest-ranked competing sides were split into four groups of three teams. Those 12 teams will be reduced to four, with only the group winners advancing to qualification phase 2, which consists of two-leg play-offs that will decide 11 of Europe’s allocated places at the final tournament in the Netherlands and Germany in November and December next year.

Group 1 will see Greece, Lithuania and Great Britain collide, in Group 2, Kosovo, Bosnia Herzegovina and Belgium will face off, while in Group 3, Finland meet Israel and Estonia. Last, but not least, the three teams in Group 4 will be Italy, Luxembourg and Bulgaria.

For the national teams, the Men's IHF Trophy South and Central America – Junior is due to take place in Managua, Nicaragua, between 29 October and 2 November, serving as a qualification event for the Intercontinental Phase of the IHF Trophy.

Another national teams event will be the ISF Gymnasiade, which will take place in Manama, Bahrain, between 24 and 30 October. The handball events will start on 25 October and will be played until 30 October, the final day of the competition.

In beach handball, the 3rd Asian Men’s & Women’s Youth Beach Handball Championship will take place in Bangkok, Thaliand, between 16 and 25 October, where four women’s and seven men’s teams will compete in a single group in a round-robin format to determine the winner.

Moving on to the club leve, the EHF Beach Handball Champions Cup 2024 will take place between 10 and 13 October and will feature 16 teams in the men’s and women’s tournaments, hosted by Porto Santo, in Portugal, where the new winners will be crowned.