A new grassroots coaches' licence is the focus of Germany’s project, following the EHF’s Master Plan goals on grassroots growth and strengthening the network.
The German Handball Federation (DHB) has developed a project through which 1,000 grassroots coaches will be educated on age-appropriate training and development during the Men’s EHF EURO 2024. Mannheim, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne, playing venues for the 16th Men’s EHF EURO, will each see 200 coaches attending the grassroots courses, compatible with the EHF RINCK Convention Foundation requirements on kindergarten and mini handball.
The course was developed last year in collaboration with regional handball associations, and after the project's launch in January, it will be offered at a regional level nationwide. The DHB said it wanted to support clubs sustainably and bring about positive change down to the grassroots level.
The course focuses primarily on training children aged from around six years old ('minis') up to 12 years old ('D-Jugend'). It covers a wide range of handball basics and the focus is on conveying these basics in a playful way as well as educating coaches on the pedagogical and didactic requirements for a young coach in children's handball. With the training, the new trainers achieve a preliminary qualification, which can then be credited towards possible C-licence training.
The training includes a total of 40 learning units, which are divided into four face-to-face days and two additional online courses. The attendance days will be held simultaneously with the European championship preliminary round from January 11th to 14th in Mannheim, Berlin and Munich. In Hamburg and Cologne, the training days will begin with the start of the main round on January 18th. All participants will be invited to an EHF EURO game.
A key goal of the project is to find and promote future handball stars.
