The 1st IHF Live Online Symposium came to an end on Saturday, 25 July, after a highly successful five-week programme comprising of 20 lectures presented by top handball experts from around the world. 

“This symposium has served as launch of the IHF Virtual Academy, which is a new and innovative part for the worldwide education for coaches, referees, delegates, teachers and handball fans,” said IHF Playing Rules and Referees Commission Chairman Ramon Gallego. 

“Coaches, referees, players worldwide have now high-quality material at their disposal to raise the quality of the trainings and matches, while at same time, all referees in the world know which should be the only refereeing line in all kinds of competitions.”

“We have received very positive feedback from all continents. Even after the live presentations, the individual lecturers are still very often called up on-demand in the library of the IHF Education Centre,” added IHF Commission for Coaching and Methods Chairman Dietrich Späte. “Of course, this was only the start.”

The registration and viewer figures, as well as the positive feedback from participants, confirm that the programme was well designed regarding the diversity of topics, and satisfied a need for more educational opportunities within the global handball community. 

Congratulations to @ramongs11 and Dietrich Späte for this excellent final lecture and thank you for this 1st @ihf_info Live Online Symposium's organisation. Great 20 conferences, a lot of ideas and... as you said... it's just the begining. #Handball #Balonmano pic.twitter.com/n8SSrIgW0D

— Vicente Cotrina, Ike (@ikecotrina) July 25, 2020

“I’m happy that some our current top IHF referees have shown that they are able to do more things than simply be referees – they have explained why they whistle, under which criteria, also when it is better not to whistle saving unnecessary interruptions. Concepts such as movements, positions, body language, flow, progressive line, passive play, offensive faults, last 30 seconds and empty goal are now more familiar and understandable for many handball people, which means it is easier to discuss handball with each other,” said Gallego.

“It is also good information and help for all media (TV, newspapers, social networks) to know the IHF criteria better and how the IHF is working with the top referees.”

The 1st IHF Live Online Symposium was streamed live on Zoom and the IHF Facebook page, with Zoom as the primary platform for participants to interact with the presenters by asking questions and also to benefit from the translation options available. French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian translation meant the Symposium could reach even greater numbers of the global handball community. 

More than 10,000 members of the handball community registered to participate in the Symposium. On Zoom, the lectures attracted hundreds of viewers per presentation, and so far almost 6,470 on-demand views on the IHF Education Centre.  

On Facebook, the impact of the Symposium was outstanding, with more than 377,000 unique viewers and more than 2.8 million users around the world reached. The engagement on the Symposium lecture programme was more than 176,000, as users took the opportunity to ask questions to the presenters. The diversity in nations represented among the figures was also highly positive, with countries representing all Continental Confederations actively engaging in the programme. 

The IHF is pleased with the success of the 1st IHF Live Online Symposium, and is in the process of planning further upcoming online educational seminars as part of the IHF Virtual Academy – and these next free live educational opportunities are not far away. 

“Over the next few weeks, we will technically integrate the new IHF Virtual Academy as a comprehensive e-learning platform step by step, and there will also be a new e-learning app,” said Späte.

“The first license – a coaching course for multipliers – will be planned in a few weeks. We will keep the idea of symposia for different target groups, freely accessible worldwide for all handball enthusiasts. 

“The next series of events will follow from 17 to 22 August: in the ‘IHF Children's Handball Week’, handball experts will explain concepts and practical examples of how children between the ages of six and 12 can be won over to playing handball. We are planning another series of events for talent training with young people between the ages of 13 and 18.”

The IHF would like to acknowledge the excellent work of the presenters in preparing their various lectures for the 1st IHF Live Online Symposium, and hopes the global handball community will benefit substantially from this educational opportunity. All lectures are now available for on-demand viewing on the IHF Education Centre, as well as on the IHF Facebook page.