Asian Handball Federation

The Asian Handball Federation (AHF) is in one way absolutely unique: during its history till date it had two Presidents - and they were father and son.

When in 1976 the federation was officially founded and Sheikh Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah was elected for President, the committed Sheikh had already put a lot of efforts and preparation work into it. In 1974, during the 7th Asian Games in Tehran (Iran), he applied as head of the Kuwaiti delegation at the executive committee for the inclusion of Handball into the sports programme and the foundation of a continental handball federation. The explanation was easy and convincing: meanwhile handball was widely spread in Asia. The leaders of the Asian Game accepted handball as an official sport and asked the Sheikh to act as interim president and to prepare the statutes of the federation. In this task he was supported by the Secretary General Syad Abul Hassan (Pakistan).[1]

Following is the AHF Executive Committee for 2017 – 2021.

Designation	Name	Country
President	Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah	Kuwait
1st Vice-President	Yoshihide Watanabe	Japan
Secretary General	Muhammad Shafiq	Pakistan
Treasurer	Bader Mohammad Al-Theyab	Kuwait
Member	Ahmed Mohamed Abdulrab Al-Shaabi	Qatar

The AHF Council is the AHF's main decision-making body between meetings of the AHF Congress. It is currently serving a 2017–2021 term.

Category	Men's	Women's
Senior Handball Championship	Qatar (2020) (4)	South Korea (2018) (14*)
Asian Games	Qatar (2018) (2)	South Korea (2018) (7*)
Junior Handball Championship	South Korea (2018) (3)	South Korea (2019) (15*)
Asian Youth Games	Qatar (2013) (1*)	South Korea (2013) (1*)
Youth Handball Championship	Bahrain (2018) (2)	South Korea (2019) (8*)
Beach Handball Championship	Qatar (2019) (5*)	China (2019) (1)
Asian Beach Games	Qatar (2016) (3*)	Vietnam (2016) (1)
Youth Beach Handball Championship	Thailand (2016) (1*)	China (2016) (1*)
Club Handball Championship	Al-Arabi SC (2019) (1)	Kaysar Club (2019) (2*)

(Titles) (*) Record titles

A dispute arises between the International Handball Federation (IHF) and the AHF following a controversial decision to replace referees of opening match of Asian Men's Handball Qualification Tournament for the 2008 Summer Olympics between Kuwait and South Korea played on 1 September 2007 in Toyota (Japan). AHF replaced experienced and IHF nominated German referees Lemme and Ulrich with Jordanian referees Al-Shoubaki and Hirzallah, neither of whom stood on the list of IHF-qualified referees having “IHF Status”, meaning that they had not completed the Global Referees Training Programme (GRTP), a program established by the IHF for the development of IHF-level referees. The Jordanian referee pair completely destroyed the South Korean team with more than 20 wrong decisions only in first-half of the match which favoured the Kuwaiti team. IHF COC Chairman Aleksandr Kozhukhov (Russia) who was appointed by IHF as supervisor for the event and member of AHF Technical Committee Khalaf Al-Enezi (Kuwait) intervened into the matter at half-time of the match and asked the referees to be fair but the South Korean team nevertheless could not get the result in their own favour losing the match by 28–20.

Later, on 17 December 2007, in an IHF Council meeting held in Paris (France), IHF decided not to approve the results of the event conduct by AHF and decided to replay both men's and women's events due to biased referee allegations. AHF objected against this decision and warned all the AHF member federations not to participate in the replay organised by IHF. Only South Korea and Japan participated in the IHF replay and South Korea won both men's and women's matches. On February 5, 2008, AHF imposed a fine of $1000 on both the Japan and South Korea and banned them from participating in any event organised by AHF until the fine is paid.[2]

When the matter becomes that complicated, both AHF and IHF mutually decided to took the case to Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for decision. The Kazakhstan Handball Federation and Kuwait Handball Association also want to become a party in the case but CAS refused their appeal. On 20 May 2008, after hearing all the parties, CAS decided to approve the result of IHF men's replay and also approved the AHF organised women's event results.[3]

First level

Second level

Third level

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• Official website (in English and Arabic)