The opening session of the 1st IHF Live Online Symposium will be held this Friday and Saturday, featuring content specifically about coaching and refereeing – but of interest for all handball enthusiasts and those working in other areas of the sport as well. All subjects to be covered in the symposium have been carefully chosen to ensure relevance for all interested. 

In every session of the free IHF Live Online Symposium, which runs from 26 June to 25 July and is now open for registration, each of the two days will feature one topic from the coaching perspective and one from the refereeing side. 

The first session, on Friday, will begin with a presentation from head coach of the German younger age category national teams Jochen Beppler. Beppler has also been working with the IHF as an analyst for some years now, examining top competitions, which complements his work with the German Handball Federation and allows him unique insight into coaching methods. 

Beppler will concentrate on a topical issue in the development of the game in recent years: targeted tactics in positional attack, encompassing individual, group and team strategy. The central idea of the lecture will be creating spaces that generate opportunities with greater possibility of success. Beppler will provide practical examples for coaches to implement in training sessions. 

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From the coaching side, the second presentation in the first session, taking place on Saturday, will be from 1990 world champion and two-time Olympic silver medallist Mats Olsson, who has become a prominent goalkeeping coach for top national teams and clubs since his own days on court. Olsson joined the IHF Commission for Coaching and Methods in 2018. 

Olsson has advocated specific goalkeeper training and competition coaching for many years, and has led the way in establishing proven methods for success in this area. Olsson’s presentation will introduce his approach to coaching the goalkeeper position, which varies from traditional methods. 

From the refereeing perspective, the first session concentrates on topics that are commonly discussed between coaches and referees in top matches: Rule 8 and contact between the line player and defenders on the six-metre line. 

Rule 8, concerning fouls and unsportsmanlike conduct, has been the subject of great discussion for several years. In his talk on the opening day of the 1st IHF Live Online Seminar, Chairman of the IHF Playing Rules and Referees Commission Ramon Gallego will focus on the guidelines and criteria applied by the IHF regarding how progressive punishment (yellow cards, two-minute suspensions, red cards) should be handled.

With the help of video examples, Gallego will outline the IHF standpoint, which is critical for those working in handball as the IHF line is the one that must be applied globally. Gallego will also discuss the pivot and wing zones, before top IHF referees Angel Sabroso, Oscar Raluy, Matija Gubica and Boris Milosevic address the subject in more detail on Saturday. 

The four referees will focus on positioning and movement when officiating a match to ensure the rules are properly applied around the pivot zone, as well as allowing referees to respond quickly and move out of the players’ way in case of fast breaks. 

On both Friday and Saturday, the sessions begin at 13:00 CET. The full programme for the 1st IHF Live Online Symposium can be found here.

Join the seminars

To join the seminars, click on the respective link below.

26 June, 13:00 CEST: Learn to create spaces in an attack – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81901134333

26 June, 15:00 CEST: Progressive line: Rules 8:3 and 8:4. Guidelines and criteria of the PRC – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84797124830

27 June, 13:00 CEST: Tasks, positions and movements around the pivot zone and other situations – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89628045675

27 June, 15:00 CEST: Goalkeeper coach education: Basic concepts in a different way – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81464172132