While the Netherlands women’s national team remains at the top of global rankings in all major championships and the men’s side appear on the cusp of a significant breakthrough with increasingly impressive results, the Dutch Handball Federation (NHV) are also focused on improving youth, elderly and beach handball programmes. Currently, the NHV are working on several projects.
One issue in the Netherlands is the extreme popularity of the sport for women in comparison with men. “We want to balance the ratio of men and women who play handball in Holland. Now, it’s 75% women and 25% men,” says NHV Communications Officer Susanne Min.
To accomplish this, the NHV are encouraging boys aged between 11 and 14 to take up handball through the project ‘Handball Heroes’. The project involves a series of handball bootcamps run across the country, where participants can collect points toward the final bootcamp at the end of the season. More information on this project can be found on theofficial website.
At the other end of the scale, the NHV plan to start a project aimed at handball for the elderly, with custom rules. In addition, the NHV are embarking on a special project to spread Goalcha, or street handball, through a series of organised clinics and an upcoming website.
Beach handball enjoys immense popularity in the Netherlands, but the NHV now aim to make the sport more accessible to players at different levels. With an elite competition already in place, the NHV have learned that there are large numbers who want to play at a lower level. Therefore, the NHV aim to accommodate this and plan to launch a pilot season. “The idea is that everybody on every level can play beach handball tournaments,” says Min.
More information on the Dutch Handball Federation’s activities can be found on the official website.