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handball in Europe has been created,”
said Staffan Holmqvist at the formal opening
ceremony.
In the year 1998, the EHF adminstration
comprised four big departments. At the
top the Secretariat, below it the Departments
for Organisation (Alexander Toncourt),
Methods & Development (Helmut
Höritsch) und Competitions (Markus Glaser)
staffed by already 14 employees. In
1996, the EHF family grew to 46 member
federations when Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Malta were admitted at the Congress in
Athens.
The 5th Extraordinary EHF Congress
1999 in Vienna and the 5th Ordinary EHF
Congress 2000 in Tel Aviv moderately
reformed the bodies elected by the Congress.
While the number of Commissions
remained unchanged, one member was
added to the Competitions Commission
to attend henceforth to club competitions
(the member elected was Leopold Kalin
from Slovenia). The Methods Commission
was likewise expanded by one member
tasked with focusing exclusively on the development
of non-competitive handball
(Allan Lund from Denmark). The Court of
Arbitration also received one additional
member, resulting in a total of eight.
The motion to also raise the number of
Executive Committee members from seven
to nine was rejected in 1999, yet adopted
the following year. From then onwards,
the chair persons of the Competitions
Commission and the Methods Commission
have also been ex officio members
of the Executive Committee. At the time,
all these motions were driven in particular
by the political will to raise the number
of female members, as emphasised in the
Annual Report of the year 1999. This was
implemented in 2000 when Helga Magnusdottir
(ISL) was the first woman to be
elected to the Competitions Commission
to take charge of Women‘s club competitions.
Another member to newly join the
Executive Committee was Jean Brihault
(FRA), the future EHF President.
At that time, the key duties of the EHF
management included organisation and
marketing of EHF competitions as well as
the development of effective communication.
In this regard, Sian Rowland, daughter
of the former chairman of the British federation,
who joined in 1999, rendered the
EHF invaluable services with her outgoing
and disarming personality. Rowland’s sudden
death in December 2008, at the age
of only 33, came as a deep shock to all the
staff and marked one of the saddest day in
EHF history, as did the unexpected passing
away of the distinguished EHF pioneer Alexander
Toncourt in 2012.
In 2002, Secretary General Wiederer
underlined that well-targeted and professional
communication was a great asset for
the EHF and its members: “The presence of
handball on today’s sporting market, the
interest that the sport brings with it and the
absolute necessity to communicate with
the handball world as well as with media
and the public both with speed and efficiency
brings with it many challenges at all
levels. Please do no forget that the General
Secretariat responsible for the management
of the daily business is the service
arm of the European Handball Federation
and the office members are here to help
in matters both large and small.” In those
years in any case, a lot of effort was dedicated
to creating the EHF website and the
Media Department.
A major change in EHF history took place
in May 2004, at the 7th Ordinary Congress
in Nicosia (CYP): the end of the presidency
of Staffan Holmqvist. When the Congress
said good-bye to the Swede, the delegates
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