No World Cup 2029: Kretzschmar regrets Saudi Arabia's withdrawal from handball | EUROtoday

As of: 11:36 a.m | Reading time: 2 minutes

DFormer nationwide handball participant Stefan Kretzschmar regrets Saudi Arabia's dwindling curiosity in handball and warns that the game might lose international significance. “If the Saudis withdraw, that translates to saying that our sport has no relevance there and has no relevance globally,” stated Kretzschmar in a publish printed on the streaming platform Dyn on Tuesday night.

It not too long ago grew to become recognized that Saudi Arabia doesn’t need to apply to host the Handball World Cup in 2029 and 2031 as deliberate. The desert state desires to focus on different sports activities and withdraw utterly from handball, as DHB boss Andreas Michelmann informed the journal “Handball Inside”. The Club World Cup can be not scheduled to happen within the nation on the Arabian Peninsula this yr.

Kretzschmar was involved in regards to the improvement. After all, from a purely sporting perspective, Saudi Arabia is a window for handball into the Arab and African world. “This window will close when they are no longer interested in us. Since we already have a problem remaining a global sport, this is not good news for us as a sport in general,” stated the sports activities director of the Bundesliga membership Füchse Berlin.

Saudi Arabia is investing closely in sport

The 51-year-old appealed to the worldwide associations EHF and IHF to develop a imaginative and prescient to make handball extra international. He made the next suggestion: “You use a World Cup to make money and the following World Cup you have to invest money. You have to go to regions and countries where handball is not popular. To South America, to Asia, to Africa. I have to host a World Cup there and give out hundreds or thousands of free tickets to every game so that the kids can get into the hall.”

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Kretzschmar intentionally omitted “the human rights issue” in his remarks. “I know you can’t, but I don’t want to address that in what I have to say,” he defined.

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Saudi Arabia has been investing closely in sport for years by its sovereign wealth fund and has already entered the soccer, boxing and Formula 1 enterprise, amongst different issues. The official objectives of the state plan “Vision 2030” are the diversification of the financial system, much less dependence on oil, opening up the nation to vacationers and enticing gives for its personal inhabitants. But the dominion can be accused of utilizing its involvement in sport to distract consideration from its human rights violations and to enhance its picture.