2024 European Men's Handball Championship qualification

Originally, the qualification process was about to start with Phase 1 in March 2021.[1] The two best-placed teams from this would qualify for the relegation round along with the winner of the 2021 edition of the IHF Emerging Nations Championship. However, after postponing of the Qualification Phase 1 and cancellation of IHF Emerging Nations Championship, both caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, those two tournaments were merged into 2021 Men's IHF/EHF Trophy. The three best-ranked teams from that tournament qualified to the relegation round.

Relegation Round involves eight teams:

• three entries from the IHF/EHF Trophy,
• Luxembourg as the best ranked team according EHF ranking which haven't participate in the final phase of the previous qualification
• Four worst-ranked fourth placed teams from the EHF EURO 2022 qualifiers

The four winners advance to the qualifiers - the latest stage of this qualification campaign.

Qualifiers will involve 32 teams:

• four teams advanced from the relegation round
• eight remaining teams from the EHF EURO 2022 qualifiers which failed to qualify for the final tournament
• twenty teams which participated at EHF EURO 2022, but not directly qualified for EHF EURO 2024

Teams will compete for 20 places at EHF EURO 2024.

Since only four teams would have participated in this round, no draw was needed.[2] This phase was planned to be played in a tournament format.[3] On 15 February 2021 the EHF announced that the tournament was postponed to 30 April to 2 May due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4]

On 26 March 2021, the Qualification Phase 1 was cancelled and replaced with the IHF/EHF Trophy.[5]

After the 2021 IHF Emerging Nations Championship was cancelled, the EHF announced in March 2021, that the IHF/EHF Trophy would take place in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 14 to 19 June 2021.[5] The three best teams qualified for the relegation round.[6]

Rank	Team
	Georgia
	Cyprus
	Bulgaria
4	Moldova
5	Andorra  Azerbaijan

The four worst-ranked fourth placed teams from the previous cycle join in this round.[7] The draw took place on 19 August 2021, when the teams will be paired in four two-legged ties.[8][9]

Seeding

The seeding was announced on 18 August 2021.[10] Teams relegated from the 2022 European Men's Handball Championship qualification were placed into the seeding pot 2.

Pot 1	Pot 2
Luxembourg  Georgia  Cyprus  Bulgaria	Finland  Belgium  Turkey  Latvia

Overview

The matches take place in the January 2022 window.

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Turkey	–	Cyprus	19–20 Jan	22 Jan
Georgia	–	Finland	5 Jan	9 Jan
Latvia	–	Bulgaria	6 Jan	9 Jan
Luxembourg	–	Belgium	20 Jan	22 Jan

Matches

19–20 January 2022	Turkey	v	Cyprus

22 January 2022	Cyprus	v	Turkey

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5 January 2022	Georgia	v	Finland

9 January 2022	Finland	v	Georgia

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6 January 2022	Latvia	v	Bulgaria

9 January 2022	Bulgaria	v	Latvia

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20 January 2022	Luxembourg	v	Belgium

22 January 2022	Belgium	v	Luxembourg

Qualifiers will be played between October 2022 and April 2023. Like in previous cycles, 32 teams will be divided into eight groups of four, with the winners and runners-up qualifying for the final tournament, together with the four best third-placed teams which will be determined taking into account only results against top two teams in each group.[11]