Nigeria to compete at major handball tourney in Bulgaria

Nigeria’s senior national handball team will participate in the Men’s Emerging Nations Championship in Bulgaria in April.

This is contained in a statement issued by Cosmos Chukwuemeka ,Media Officer, Handball Federation of Nigeria(HFN),on Friday in Lagos .

Chukwuemeka said the championship,organised by International Handball Federation(IMF), would hold between April 25 and 30.

According to him, Nigeria will be playing in group D alongside host Bulgaria and Azerbaijan.

He said the draw for the championship was done earlier on Friday at the IHF head office in Basel, Switzerland.

It was reported that the IHF Emerging Nations Championship is a special IHF project that has been supporting teams from emerging nations since 2015.

The championship is considered a qualification process for European Handball Federation championship.

It also avails countries from other continental confederations of the opportunity to take part and develop their players .

The countries that currently participate are those in the “Four-year plan” of the European Handball Federation.

The best ranked countries from other continents that did not qualify for the World Men’s Handball Championship, were also highly regarded to compete.

IHF Emerging Nations Championship 2023 Groups are:

Group A: Malta, Andorra, India

Group B: Cyprus Moldova, Australia

Group C: Great Britain, Cuba, Guatemala.

Group D has Azerbaijan, Bulgaria and Nigeria.

Nigeria’s first participation in the tourney was in 2019 in Georgia, when the country defeated Columbia to finish 7th in the championship.