The handball world association IHF hopes for the use of a self-adhesive ball at the World Cup 2019 in Germany and Denmark. This would be accompanied by a resin ban.
“I hope that we can test the ball at the World Championships in Germany and Denmark,”IHF President Hassan Moustafa told handball-world. com on Tuesday. The announcement of a planned ban on resin had made headlines for the first time last year.
A Japanese company is currently working “day and night” on perfecting, Moustafa said:”The last meeting with them was here in Leipzig – they are doing their jobs now, then they come back and we do various tests for the youth and juniors.”.
The planned introduction of the ball without resin has several reasons for the World Association:”Here in Germany we also have many problems, the resin makes the floor dirty,”said Moustafa:”The color of the ball is not visible, after ten minutes the ball is black. That’s not good for our image.”
When the topic first came up, there was a lot of criticism from the German handball scene. DHB President Andreas Michelmann remains sceptical about the project. He could not judge whether it would be possible to develop a ball “with which you can play competitive sport at the highest level without resin”.