The 2024 European Women's Handball Championship was held in Austria, Hungary and Switzerland from 28 November to 15 December 2024. This was the first tournament to feature 24 teams. Norway were the two time defending champions and defended their title once again with a win over Denmark.
Originally, there were two bids for the EHF Women's Euro 2024.
On 5 September 2017, Russia's bid was the only bid left.
However, later on, when the bids were announced for the 2022 and 2024 EHF Euros, Russia's bid was withdrawn and thus there were no applications left. On 20 June 2018, the day the host was supposed to be confirmed, the EHF voted to delay the awardment of the hosting rights.
In April 2019, the EHF reopened the bidding process. On 20 September 2019, there were 3 new bids.
The host announcement took place on 25 January 2020 at the EHF Extraordinary Congress in Stockholm. The winners were Austria, Hungary and Switzerland, who defeated the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia bid, 28âÂÂ21, in the second round.
On 12 January 2023, the Hungarian government's chancellery minister, Gergely Gulyás, announced that Hungary would withdraw as hosts due to financial reasons. A few days prior, the Austrian Handball Federation was informed by the Hungarians about the decision to withdraw. The other co-hosts, Austria and Switzerland, now wanted to negotiate with the EHF about how the tournament will be held. On 28 January, the European Handball Federation released a statement concerning the issue, and said that they were amazed and surprised with the decision to potentially withdraw as co-hosts. On 16 March 2023, the EHF announced a change to the organisation structure of the championships. Hungary remained as a co-host, but played a reduced part in the hosting of the competition, including the whole portion of the tournament at the MVM Dome in Budapest (one Main Round group and the Final Weekend) being axed and replaced by Vienna. During all the uncertainty, Romania had stated that they would be able to host the tournament if the original hosts could not.
The final weekend was scheduled to be held at the MVM Dome in Budapest, Hungary, but later it was replaced with the Wiener Stadthalle in Vienna, Austria.
Expanding the competition, to 20 or 24 teams, was first considered on 30 August 2018. The idea was proposed by the Euro Delegation, but the EHF competitions commission strongly opposed the proposal, due to the fact that:
Despite the opposition from the competitions commission, the EHF received positive feedback from their new commercial partners, Infront and DAZN about the possible expansion. On 15 December, at the EHF Executive Committee in Paris, the EHF decided to examine to proposed expansion further. In January 2019, they had introduced a working group to oversee the possible enlargement. On 5 April 2019, based on the recommendations by the working group, the EHF officially decided to expand the tournament to 24 teams.
31 teams registered for participation and competed for 20 places at the final tournament. Great Britain withdraw late which would have been the 32nd team. The teams were drawn into seven groups of four and one group with three teams. The top-two placed teams in each group qualified for the final tournament, alongside the four best-ranked third-placed teams, not counting the matches against fourth-placed teams. The qualifiers draw took place on 20 April 2023 in Zürich, Switzerland. Qualification started in October 2023 and ended in April 2024.
All 16 teams from the 2022 edition qualified, including North Macedonia who qualified for a major handball competition on merit for the first time since 2012. Debuting in the first 24 team championship are Faroe Islands and Türkiye, with the former becoming the smallest nation ever to qualify for the finals.
Czech Republic return after missing the 2022 edition. The teams returning after long absences include co-hosts Austria (first time since 2008), Iceland (first time since 2012) plus Slovakia and Ukraine, who both return after last appearing at the Euro ten years ago in 2014. Portugal qualified for only their second ever major handball tournament after only participating at the 2008 European Women's Handball Championship.
Denmark were the first team to secure qualification after defeating Poland in February, while the Danes, Germany, Hungary and Norway all continue their flawless record of making every European Championship.
The draw was held at 18:00 CEST on 18 April 2024 in Vienna, Austria. The guests for the draw were Norwegian goalkeeper Silje Solberg, Austrian goalkeeper Petra Blazek, Swiss goalkeeper Lea Schüpbach and right wing for the Hungarian national team Viktória Gyà Âri-Lukács. The draw started with the teams from pot one being drawn followed by pots two, three and four.
The pots were announced on 8 April 2024.
18 referee pairs were selected on 2 July 2024. It was updated on 4 September 2024, when the Danish pair replaced the Turkish pair. It was updated a second time on 7 November 2024, when the Austrian pair was replaced by another Austrian pair and the Polish pair replaced the German pair.
All times are UTC+1.
Points and goals gained in the preliminary group against teams that advance will be transferred to the main round.
The All Star Team and awards were announced on 15 December 2024.
The official logo was unveiled on 19 November 2022 at the closing press conference of the 2022 edition in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
The official ball for the 2024 European Championship come out on 7 April 2023, made by manufacturer and EHF partner, Select. The ball in made of faux leather and is decorated in contrasting red tones with green accents and white areas with the tournament's slogan "Catch the Spirit" on the ball as well.
The mascot was announced on 2 April 2024. The mascot is a wildcat.
For the matches of the European Championship, tickets are offered by the EHF as a package with several matches as follows:
The official song was unveiled on 15 April 2024. It is Live Is Life by Austrian band Opus which has been adapted to fit the tournament. The song was officially unveiled at the draw on 18 April 2024. Music video released 20 August 2024.