El Salvador return to handball activities

In a virtual meeting with the team representatives as well as the commission of handball referees at the beginning of this month, the El Salvadoran Handball Federation (ESHF) announced the calendar of handball activities and competitions for this year – everything in compliance with the pandemic situation. 

“Due to COVID-19 it has been very difficult to compete but following the national sanitary protocol and our plans to return safely to compete, we will be organising indoor and beach handball adapted competitions,” said President Cecilia Hernández.

At the domestic level, the ESHF has scheduled an adapted championship, both for beach and indoor handball for men and women with six to 10 teams, depending on how many clubs will register.

Beach handball will run from 20 March to 8 May and is based on a shoot-out competition followed by 3x3 beach handball matches in open spaces with a reduced or zero contact level. The teams will compete in a group phase to classify for the semi-finals and finals.

In May, the indoor adapted competition will start and is also based on an initial phase with individual skills competitions and continues with 4x4 handball matches with modified rules to reduce or avoid contact. Like for beach handball, the teams will play a group phase to qualify for the knock-out phase. 

These modified tournaments are taking place in preparation for the return to court for the teams to play the 26th National League Championship, which is planned for August 2021 – if the pandemic situation allows it. This event has been suspended since March 2020, due to the health emergency in the country. In case it runs as planned, at least six women’s teams and 10 men’s teams of different regions of the country will participate. 

Throughout the pandemic, most of the clubs were not able to train. Some of them organised themselves to practice at the ESHF courts, but the majority trained at home and are now smoothly moving to return to activities. The modified tournaments are a beginning to motivate the teams to return to physical activities.

Also, two youth tournaments will be running from August until October. The Student Games “Juegos Estudiantiles” for boys and girls in the categories under 12, under 15 and under 17, led by the Ministry of Education and Sports. Additionally, the Federation will organise the II National games – Development League, which consists of two stages. The eliminatory phase will take place in five regions of the country, followed by the national phase, where the winners of each region will gather in a three-day tournament to crown the champions in the Under-19 category for boys and girls. 

For the national teams, senior, youth and junior teams have been training on court since November with strict protocols and are waiting to participate in the possible regional competitions.