Keynote Address by EHF President Tor Lian

A mission was set

A proactive communication policy is for any organisation, whatever the size or nature, of key importance. The European Handball Federation, as the governing body for handball on the European continent, is of course no different. The EHF was established in 1991 and even back then, in the – now unthinkable - times before e-mail and the worldwide web, vast importance was placed on securing a transparent and effective communication network. The mission was set to deliver EHF information as concisely, as accurately, as quickly and as cost effective as humanly possible to all members of the European Handball Family – this, as I am sure you agree – is by no means an easy task.

Accomplishing our goal

However, despite the changing shape of our sport, the European map and of course developments in technology, we have remained on this path and continue to steer to reach our goals. From the outset, the worldwide web was identified as being a key communication channel for European handball, a platform to present the sport at its best, serving all stakeholders of our sport, irrelevant of the branch. Much has changed since the establishment of the EHF and the first eurohandball.com portal; when I think back to the first EHF website, one must smile as it now has an “antique-look”, a look of times gone by. That website may be lost in history, but the technical foundations still remains today.

Keeping track on European handball activities

One of the key objectives of eurohandball.com and all related domains is to serve the world with up to date information on all European handball activities. The vast bulk of these activities are obviously centred around handball competitions and matches. Matches take place all corners of Europe. The EHF sees it as its duty to correlate all match data and deliver it to the world via the web. In this respect, nothing has changed; we continue to process the data, except today, the EHF website offers an extensive archive and detailed results on each and every match which has ever taken place within the EHF compendium. The EHF is forever seeking new ways to present its vast library of data and exploring new possibilities to continue on this development curve.

Continual Investment

The EHF invests a great amount of resources in its web platform and the original prognosis that the web marked the future could not have been more accurate. The original foundation stones form an essential part of the eurohandball.com framework. Over the years these have been built-on, the handball business no longer just revolves around results and figures. The news, the stories, the personalities and the stars play a huge role in today’s world, which is why the EHF has continued to follow its dream of the ultimate web platform and now places great emphasis on the stories in and around “our world”.

The eurohandball.com Family

eurohandball.com has been the first port of call for the sporting world for almost two generations now, and it has been joined by related domains, like for example ehf-euro.com, ehfcl.com. The “sister” sites are all accessible from eurohandball.com, but have taken on a whole new flair, in some ways leaving eurohandball.com behind. The relaunch of the eurohandball.com site was the next on the list “as it were”  - and here we have it, I, for one, am sure that it will continue to serve the handball and sporting community, just as it has done for so many years. You can find the traditional content and data as well as easy-to-use gateways and features from all EHF activities and products.

And finally…

We are always open for questions, comments and of course critique, do not hesitate to contact us to let us know what you think – your feedback is welcome! On behalf of the European Handball Federation, I hope we continue to serve you and bring you the facts, figures and news that you need. Enjoy the site!

I remain with kindest regards,

Tor Lian
EHF President