Before the final of the World Championship, IHF President Dr. Hassan Moustafa takes his personal balance of the WCh in Sweden.

What are your general impressions of the World Championship in Sweden?

Moustafa: I give my gratitude to the Swedish organisers, they did a very good job. And this is not only my opinion, but also all officials and teams share it. I am very happy with the result in Sweden. It is always our objective to reach new records at World Championships. And we reached a new record in TV broadcasting. Never before, a World Championship has been broadcasted in so many countries. By reflecting the last ten years the increase to 160 countries is enormous. Aside the number of spectators rose compared with the last World Championship in Croatia. The arenas were full in all venues.

Will this big number of countries have an impact on the development of handball worldwide?

Moustafa: We hope so. The worldwide development is highly important for us. In Europe we had TV coverage in UK for the first time, aside fans in the big countries like China or India watched the games. People like our sports and this World Championship was a very good promotion for handball. And we invest the profit we take from the World Championships in projects in all over the world.

What is your balance in the sportive way?

Moustafa: The teams, which had reached the semi-finals were the best teams of the tournament. The final France vs. Denmark will see the two absolutely dominant teams. I hope of a sportive and fair decision. I very much liked to see the success of the Swedish team. For some years they were out of the top nations, now they have a very young and strong team – a new generation started. In total I’m very happy with the performances of all players, they showed very attractive games in all stages of the tournament. Ten teams – as much as never before – had the chance to become World Champion, which means a huge number of top nations. And after this World Championship we will evaluate all kinds of interests. My first impression: the matches became faster and the number of goals arose.