32 teams await EHF EURO 2024 qualifiers opponents

32 teams will vie for the remaining 20 places at the Men’s EHF EURO 2024 when the qualifiers begin in October — and it almost time to find out who will play who in the quest for the final tournament in Germany. The draw for the qualifiers will be held on 31 March at 18:00 CEST in Berlin and streamed live on the Home of Handball Facebook and YouTube pages, as well as on EHFTV.

20 of the participating teams enter the race after playing the EHF EURO 2022, starting with fourth-ranked France all the way down the ranks. Another eight participants — Estonia, Faroe Islands, Greece, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Romania and Switzerland —are qualified for this phase after being eliminated in the final qualification stage on the path to the EHF EURO 2022. Belgium, Finland, Latvia and Turkey progressed from the EHF EURO 2024 qualifiers relegation round.  

Due to the EHF decision to ban teams from Russia and Belarus, two teams defeated in the relegation round will replace these national sides: Georgia and Luxembourg, rounding out the 32 qualifiers participants.

The pots for the draw have been determined according to the EHF Men’s National Team Ranking:

• Pot 1: Norway, France, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Portugal, Iceland, Austria
• Pot 2: Czech Republic, Poland, The Netherlands, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine
• Pot 3: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lithuania, Latvia, Israel, Slovakia, Turkey, Romania, Greece
• Pot 4: Kosovo, Belgium, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, Italy, Georgia, Luxembourg

The 32 teams will be drawn into eight groups of four, from which the top two sides in each will qualify for the final tournament, along with the four best third-ranked teams. The best third-ranked teams will be determined after all matches in the qualifiers are played, taking only the games against the two top-ranked teams into consideration.

A maximum of four of the lowest-ranked teams at the end of this final qualification stage will join the relegation round in the EHF EURO 2026 qualifiers.

The draw procedure will see the eight teams in pot 4 drawn into row 4, followed by the eight teams in pot 3 being drawn to row 3 and the eight teams in pot 1 to row 1. Finally, Serbia will be drawn into row 2 before the seven remaining teams in pot 2 are drawn into the same row.

The qualifiers will be played in three periods of two matches each for a total of six rounds, during which the teams in each group face each other in home-and-away legs. The dates for the six rounds are as follows:

• Round 1: 12/13 October 2022
• Round 2: 15/16 October 2022
• Round 3: 8/9 March 2023
• Round 4: 11/12 March 2023
• Round 5: 26/27 April 2023
• Round 6: 30 April 2023 (unified throw-off time for all matches)  

With 24 sides set to contest the event on 10–28 January 2024, four are already qualified: host Germany, defending champions Sweden, and EHF EURO 2022 medallists Spain and Denmark. These four sides will play the EHF EURO Cup 2024 following the same schedule as the qualifiers.