After the last matches of the preliminary round of the EHF EURO 2022 were played on Tuesday, the ranking of the teams in positions 13 to 24 was determined, and their progression through to qualification for the IHF Men’s World Championship 2023 in Poland and Sweden.
Slovenia, Belarus, Slovakia, Portugal, Austria, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine, who finished in 16th to 24th positions, will have to fight for a place in the second part of qualification phase two.
These nine teams will join Switzerland as well as the eight qualifiers from the first phase, which ended last weekend. These eight teams are Greece, Belgium, Finland, Estonia, Romania, Israel, the Faroe Islands and Italy.
The 18 teams will play part one of qualification phase two in March, with nine tickets for the second part of phase 2 at stake. A draw will take place at 13:30 CET in the Budapest Handball Arena on Saturday 29 January.
Meanwhile the Czech Republic, Serbia and Hungary, who finished in 13th, 14th and 15th positions, have pre-qualified for the second part of qualification phase 2. They will be joined by the teams ranked fourth to 12th after the main round – excluding World Championship co-hosts Poland and Sweden, and reigning champions Denmark.
Eventually, the nine winners of part one plus the teams directly seeded for part two will compete for nine European tickets to the World Championship 2023.
The three top ranked teams at EHF EURO 2022, excluding Poland, Sweden and Denmark, will qualify for the World Championship.
