Handball: Hanning admits mistakes of the association – Prokop’s future still open

DHB Vice President Bob Hanning, following the disappointing performance of the association’s German handball team in the European Championship, has acknowledged the association’s mistakes and once again left the future of national coach Christian Prokop open.

“We have failed twice within twelve months. After the World Cup, we decided not to do an analysis because of the change of coach. That was a mistake on the part of the association. We misjudged this,”said Hanning in the ZDF morning show.

Hanning announced an extensive analysis over the next four to six weeks,”Then we will make an open-ended decision,”said the vice-president of the German Handball Federation (DHB):”We will talk to everyone to get an overall picture. The wish is to continue with Christian Prokop. We did a lot of good and right things with Christian Prokop. That’s why it’s too easy for me to feed him.”

However, criticism of the national coach is increasing one year before the home World Cup. The fact that Dagur Sigurdsson’s successor, Finn Lemke, has decided to give up defensive boss Finn Lemke, could be the main reason for the apparent differences between the team and coach.

“When you take such a player out of the team, it is very difficult to reintroduce him. We had individual players who were simply out of shape,”said Hanning, citing captain Uwe Gensheimer and Steffen Weinhold as an example.