Today, Friday 20 June 2025, marks the fourth edition of the annual ‘International Beach Handball Day’, celebrating the anniversary of the first organised, rules-based beach handball match, which took place on Ponza Island, Italy on 20 June 1992.

And in Hammamet, Tunisia, 30 different teams from all six IHF continents are celebrating it fully as they compete at the third edition of the IHF Men’s and Women’s Youth Beach Handball World Championship – today seeing them play twice each in a packed schedule as the main round concludes.

‘International Beach Handball Day’ was launched on 20 June 2022 at the IHF Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball World Championships in Greece, marking the 30th anniversary of that special match.
The day aims to also celebrate just how far the sport has come since 1992, with the fourth edition of the IHF Beach Handball Global Tour getting underway in Tunisia earlier this month.

Beach Handball was included at the European Games last year, joining a long list of events including the Youth Olympic Games, The World Games, ANOC World Beach Games, African Games, Asian Beach Games, South American Beach Games and many more global and continental events, plus the
IHF Beach Handball Showcase held on the sidelines of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games which featured over 70 of the world’s best players and coaches.

World’s coaches celebrate sport with constructive discussion

To celebrate International Beach Handball Day 2025 and continue working towards building the successful future of the sport, Tamas Neukum, coordinator of Coaching for the IHF Beach Handball Working Group and Marten Franke, IHF Analyst, invited all 30 coaches at Tunisia 2025 to a special coaches’ workshop on Thursday.

A wide range of beach handball topics were discussed, including analysis, research and much more, before ending with an open discussion about everything and anything, starting with ideas to continue developing the sport.

“We started this workshop last year in Pingtan, at China 2024, and it's especially more important in the youth category because we need to know their opinions about the difficulties and problems they face, how they see the development of the sport, help them exchange their ideas between each other and this all works towards having more educated coaches,” explained Neukum.

“It is very important for us to aim to increase all of the coaches to the same top level, because we need more and more countries in the beach handball family; good teams from Africa, from Oceania – from all continents and if we do, we will have more power.

“The IHF Beach Handball Working Group are very, very motivated to help them and to show them the right way, how they can develop themselves and beach handball in their country, but it is important to note that we are always available all year-round, not just with this workshop.”

Marten Franke is one coach who has been on both sides of the workshop, having attended as a coach in his capacity as head coach of the German men’s team at China 2024 and, now, at Tunisia 2025 as an IHF Analyst.

“It's hard to cover everything, but it's important to give as much information as possible,” he said. “We presented to the coaches how we analyse and asked for their input to improve this way of analysing; it's a kind of professionalisation. We also asked about the research articles. We want to show that beach handball improves and is getting more professional day-by-day, year-by-year. 

“But it’s also important on the other side to get information from the teams, nations and continents. What are their problems? What are their difficulties to cover? And how can the IHF help in those cases?

“We had conversations about the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games and the teams are also interested to go forward, to get more competitions, so that's a really good sign,” he added. “It’s a big difference here compared to, for example, a European Championship, because more or less, you know everybody very well there, but at the World Championship you see new faces, new people, new cultures, and you can really feel it.”

Celebrate Beach Handball

As usual, and like all-year round, the IHF calls on all fans of the sport worldwide to tell the world what the sport means to them on social media by using the hashtag #beachhandball.

About International Beach Handball Day

The idea of acknowledging the special moment in the sport was originally conceived by former IHF Beach Handball Working Group member Sasa Kuburovic, with the purpose of shining a light on the sport and celebrating all of those involved in its foundation, currently involved and in its future.

International Beach Handball Day complements the annual International Handball Week which was launched in 2020 and runs from 12 to 18 July every year in homage to the founding of the IHF on 12 July 1946.