What is handball?

Handball History
Handball is an international 7-a-side indoor sport played in 147 countries around the world. It emerged from an amalgam of similar sports in the early part of the 20th century. It has been an official Olympic sport since the 1972 Games in Munich. The international governing body for the sports is the International Handball Federation (IHF) whose headquarters are in Basil, Switzerland.
Handball has developed from a number of similar games, which were in existence at the start of the 20th century. These games were played in Central and Northern Europe and in 1926 Standard International Rules were established. In 1928 the International Amateur Handball Federation was established by 11 countries during the Summer Olympic Games. This body later became the present International Handball Federation.
In the early part of the century Handball was an eleven-a-side game played outdoors on a soccer pitch and indeed this version of the game is still played by ‘Veterans’ in countries such as Austria and Germany.
As the popularity of handball spread throughout Europe, major modifications were being considered in Northern Europe due to the more severe climate. The need for indoor handball became apparent. As an indoor game, handball became faster and more colourful and rapidly grew to become popular throughout Europe.
Indoor handball and the outdoor field version enjoyed equal popularity until the late 1960’s. In 1965 the Olympic Committee approved indoor handball for the Olympic Games and the name ‘Handball’ now refers exclusively to the indoors 7-a-side version.
The first IHF men’s indoor World Championships were held in 1954 and Sweden emerged as the champions. Three years later Czechoslovakia won the first Ladies Championships. The Scandinavian countries, along with Germany and the former Soviet Union, were traditionally the powerhouses in world Handball. This has been changing over the past decade as the popularity of the sport has increased in the Southern and Western European countries as well as in the Far East. We now have very strong national teams from other nations France, Denmark, Egypt, and Korea.
The World and European handball championships are well-established events attracting several million TV viewers. But the sport is not well developed in the English speaking parts of the globe - e.g. the U.S., Canada, Australia, Ireland etc. Teams from these countries regularly compete at World and Olympic championships but as yet they have not broken into the top ranking nations.
The governing body for handball in Europe is the European Handball Federation (EHF) based in Vienna, Austria. Europe is the traditional home of handball with 46 nations affiliated to the EHF. The standard of the game varies considerably within Europe - from professional leagues in Germany, Spain, France and Sweden to extremely amateur minority sport level in countries such as Ireland, UK and Malta.