THE INTERNATIONAL Handball Federation (IHF) tomorrow elects its president and council that will serve from 2004 to 2008. Hassan Mustafa, the current president of both the international and Egyptian federations, is running for a new term. Inas Mazhar caught up with the incumbent. Mustafa became the first Egyptian and African president of the IHF when he was elected in 2000 in Moscow. "I won't talk about my achievements during the past four years because they are proof that I have been up to the task and have kept all my promises," Mustafa said. "With the help of my handball friends worldwide, our goals have been met. "My aim was to promote the development of the sport in order to be able to meet our goals. Besides the significant amount of time spent at the office, I estimate that I spent around 600 days away from home for the sake of the IHF." Buying the new IHF premises was one of the major achievements during Mustafa's tenure. "The IHF was paying 70850.00 Swiss francs per year in rent; we sought to purchase our own premises," Mustafa said. After several field surveys and meetings with the mayors of Basle and Lausanne, the IHF eventually bought a permanent premise for the IHF in Basle. The new office was officially opened on 2 October 2002 in the presence of the IOC and other official representatives. The IHF received $1 million in contributions from the IOC. The total cost amounted to 3.2 million Swiss francs. The IHF also launched an aid project in 2001 to help national federations. The budget reached 2.5 million Swiss francs. "We gave aid to 111 national federations during the last four years, including balls, nets, goals, sports equipment, whistles, stopwatches and referee equipment," Mustafa said. "In addition, in very urgent cases, financial support was granted to a certain number of member federations." A working group deals with marketing matters but Mustafa said the IHF was working on the establishment of its own marketing company. "One of our main contracts is with Sportfive, and we succeeded in increasing its value by 38.5 per cent. "Until recently, we dealt with the world championships as amateurs and thus other international sports were ahead of us. We have taken several decisions to increase professionalism in various fields such as refereeing, competitions, TV, spectators, publicity, avoiding stoppages in the game, increasing the attractiveness of the sport, special uniforms for handball. The results of all this will be revealed at the next world championships." Mustafa's other success story include the first men's youth championship, to take place in Qatar in 2005, the first women's youth championship in 2006 and of course the first World Beach Handball Championship. According to the IHF president, two meetings with European presidents were held to negotiate the development of the sport as well as a meeting with sponsors to discuss manufacturing a new ball with special leather to avoid the use of glue, and to create a special uniform for handball. During the past four years, Mustafa said he granted financial assistance to some federations in order to allow them to participate in the world championships, exempting them from their financial obligations, arrears due from several member federations for 2003 and earlier membership fees which were partially waived to enable them to attend the congress. Newly admitted members received initial support with regards to administration matters in order to start local work.
