Qualifying Rounds for Handball to Be Held Again in January

Qualifying Rounds for Handball to Be Held Again in January. December. 19, 2007 08:29. bluesky@donga.com.

Due to continuous bad calls by the referee, both the men and women’s Korean National Handball squads got a second chance at the qualifying rounds for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The International Handball Federation (IHF) held an emergency conference in Paris, France on Tuesday, and reached a decision to hold the qualifying rounds for the Asian region once more. The IHF will announce the date for the qualifying rounds in three days. This is the first time in history a qualifying round is held twice.

Kuwait is the country that heads the Asia Handball Federation (AHF). Their men’s team had the best record and qualified for the Olympics after the qualifying rounds held in Japan in September. In the women’s qualifying round held in Kazakhstan in August, the home team gained the right of passage.

But throughout the qualifying matches, the local referees displayed favoritism and the nations that participated continued to voice their dissatisfaction.

Finally, handball in Asia is about to be freed from Kuwait’s dominant control over the game. The referees were constantly trying to please Martyr Shaikh Fahad Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, head of the Kuwaiti delegation to the seventh Asian games.

The Korea Handball Federation edited the Korea-Kuwait matches to show the bad calls brought on by favoritism, complete with subtitles, and sent it out to 160 IHF member nations to file a survey.

Through the aid of Korean Olympic Committee, they filed complaints to the IOC as well. In the end the IOC reached a decision to announce that should not let such misdemeanors continue to occur in handball matches, they will take action to exclude handball from the Olympics. The IHF responded by deciding to hold the qualifying rounds again.