28 November 2017

PTG2017: IHF President accused of creating ‘paper federations’

Dr. Hassan Moustafa, President of the International Handball Federation (IHF), has been accused of creating ‘paper federations’ in order to retain power over the body. Journalist Jeppe Laursen Brock highlighted that Dr. Moustafa was elected unopposed for a fourth consecutive term on 11 November, having added 63 new member federations since his first election, taking the number of IHF federations to 207 (FIFA has 211).

Brock said that at a one member, one vote system operates at IHF elections. ‘Your re-election is an affirmation of the excellent contribution you have made to the world of handball throughout the last seventeen years in your role as IHF President’, wrote IOC President Thomas Bach in a letter to Dr. Moustafa following his re-election. ‘Thanks to your enthusiasm, dedication and valuable work, your federation has been continuously evolving’.

Jamaica, Fiji and Timor Leste (East Timor) were elected as new members at the recent IHF Ordinary Congress which returned Dr. Moustafa as President. The Jamaican federation had actively asked for donations on its Facebook page in 2014. A page on the Fiji Handball Federation internet site says that a 5 October 2016 meeting ‘elected officials to run the sport for two years, with the aim of meeting membership requirements from IHF and FASANOC [Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee]’. The Timor Leste Handball Federation does not appear to have an online presence.

Research carried out in 2015 by Brock’s newspaper, Politiken, found that 120 federations did not have the required level to be part of the world ranking, which only included 84 nations. Today, that world ranking appears to include 475 nations. Closer inspection reveals that some have been ranked more than once, but registered IHF federations such as Nepal, Uganda and Kiribati do not appear on the list.

Politiken’s research found that some federations were hard to follow as they had no Facebook profile or a functioning homepage. It found that although many reported a functioning homepage on the IHF’s list of member federations, many were dysfunctional, showed dummy text or content not related to handball (such as porn). For 102 federations, it was not possible to confirm that a national handball championship existed at all, such as Sierra Leone, Marshall Islands or Guam. Seventy-six federations did not report a contact address or just reported a post box address, such as Saint Lucia, Micronesia or Mongolia.

“Handball wasn’t a sport here, until he contacted us”, Robert Doko of the Papua New Guinea federation told Politiken. “You could ask whether they should have introduced us to the sport before we were admitted. You might say that they put the cart before the horse.”

“We owe a big thanks to Dr. Moustafa for the support”, Sihle Siphesihle of the Swaziland federation told Poltiken. “If the IHF had not suggested it, there would probably not have been handball in Swaziland. My first task as President of the new federation was to find people to play handball.”

“IHF approached us to become a member and donated some balls”, Villiamu Sekifu of the Tuvalu federation told Politiken. “But we can’t start until we have a coach. It is a new sport here so we need a person who knows about it and can introduce us to it before we can continue.”

Europe currently makes up 52 of the 207 IHF member federations. Although the members of the European Handball Federation (EHF) comprise nations where handball is popular, televised, and sponsored, they cannot use a block vote to change the organisation of the IHF, which is dominated by the smaller member federations.

“Many of the continental federations, including Africa, are very satisfied with things as they are”, Per Bertelsen, President of the Danish Handball Federation (DHF), told Politiken. “I must honestly admit that on the spot, I cannot tell you where Timor Leste is located. I have never actually heard of the country.”

“This draws a very clear picture of a President recruiting a number of nations that do not have any real connection to the sport for the sole purpose of consolidating his power”, warned Jens Seger Andersen, Director of Play The Game, last year. “The problem is that there is no proper development work once these nations have become part of the handball family. They just throw a lot of money out haphazardly without any control. What is important is, that countries in which handball is hardly played have as big an influence as countries in which handball is a national sport. Germany, with several thousand handball players has one vote, while Tuvalu, with a handful of players also has one vote. It’s a distortion of democracy.”

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