Her Playground: What stood out in September

We continue the Her Playground monthly roundup series with a look at subjects and milestones that stood out to us.

Focus topic: Pregnancy and elite athletes

Two major organisations have taken significant steps forward in the realm of pregnancy and elite or professional athletes: The International Cricket Council (ICC) and English football club Chelsea.

International Cricket Council: “Building a game where women can thrive, both on and off the field”

The ICC released their Return to Play Post-pregnancy Guidelines in June 2026. As many sports have been experiencing, increasingly more female cricket players have been choosing to have children during their active careers and return to playing.

Women’s cricket is one of six priority areas defined by the ICC. The ICC understand maternity policies and guidelines as crucial in the context of growing the women’s game — it is an area that cannot be ignored if women’s sport is to flourish.

“The continued growth of women's cricket must be built on opportunity, inclusion and care for our players at every stage of their lives and careers. No player should have to choose between motherhood and representing her country at the highest level,” says ICC Chairman Jay Shah.

“As women's cricket continues to grow globally, it is essential that we protect player welfare, retain talented athletes and strengthen pathways for current and future generations. These Guidelines reflect our commitment to building a game where women can thrive, both on and off the field.”

The ICC guidelines are shaped around six core steps: Early recovery after birth, medical and wellbeing reviews, gradual return to training, conditioning specific to cricket, returning to play and monitoring once the athlete is back on the field.

The Guidelines, designed to help national federations determine their own return-to-play policies, also outline practical considerations such as training environments, childcare, spaces for feeding and caring for babies at venues and travel support.

Chelsea FC: “Elite sport asks a lot of women during the very years when fertility matters most”

In August, Chelsea FC announced a partnership with fertility clinic Fertility Plus, making the clinic the club’s “Official Fertility Partner.” According to Chelsea FC Women Commercial Director Giulia Mazzia, the partnership is the first of its kind.

“As a club, Chelsea Women want to set the standard when it comes to player care in women’s football. While we have made great strides in enhancing support for players to optimise their on-pitch performance, we are now going further to provide holistic support for their health and wellbeing off the football field as well,” stated the media release.

The fertility partnership is not only about helping pregnant women or those actively trying to conceive — it is about empowering the club’s players to make informed choices surrounding their fertility.

As the co-founders of Fertility Plus, Dr Amit Shah and Dr Anil Gudi, highlight: “Elite sport asks a lot of women during the very years when fertility matters most, yet it's a conversation the game has rarely had.”

A trailblazing club off the field, Chelsea FC are simultaneously one of the most successful in the English domestic competitions — a fact that highlights how a holistic approach to player health and off-field topics plays an important role in sporting achievements.

Highlight project of the month: Global Gender Gap Report 2026

The latest Global Gender Gap Report (GGGR), released every year since 2006 and an initiative of the World Economic Forum, was published in September.

How is gender equality relevant to economy? Essentially, gender equality can help ensure the use of all “human resources” in a country, something that will not occur while women and girls are undervalued and oppressed. That undervaluing and oppression looks different by location, but the key fact is that no country has 100 per cent gender parity.

“We launched the first edition of the Global Gender Gap Report at the World Economic Forum with two simple foundations: That economies would hinder their competitiveness if they failed to invest in all of their human capital, and that consistently measuring gender gaps would help leaders focus their efforts on advancing parity within and across countries,” writes World Economic Forum Managing Director Saadia Zahidi in the GGGR 2026 preface.

“Gender parity is not simply an outcome of progress; it is one of the foundations on which future progress will be built.”

Zahidi says that the two decades of measurement have proven gender gaps can close, but the current task is to close them faster.

The long-term analysis covers 145 economies and includes a constant sample of 97 that have featured in all 20 editions of the GGGR. The statistics are measured as a percentage, which represents how far a given gender gap is closed.

Globally, the current gender gap is at 69.2 per cent. Since the GGGR was introduced in 2006, the overall improvement has been measured at 5.2 per cent. In the last year, that gap closed by 0.4 per cent. At the current rate of progress, it will take 120 years for gender parity to be reached on a global scale.

European economies have been the strongest performers across the two decades and remain so in 2026. The European gender gap for the continent overall is at 75.7 per cent, having narrowly passed North America (75.2 per cent) for the 2026 edition. Europe has increased gender parity by seven per cent since 2006 and is estimated to reach full parity in 70 years.

Only one country records a rate of over 90 per cent gender parity: Iceland, at 93 per cent. All countries in the top 10 have reached a mark of at least 81 per cent.

The top 10 list is as follows:

1. Iceland: 93 per cent

2. Finland: 87.2 per cent

3. Norway: 85.7 per cent

4. Namibia: 84.5 per cent

5. United Kingdom: 84.2 per cent

6. New Zealand: 82.8 per cent

7. Sweden: 82.3 per cent

8. Australia: 81.9 per cent

9. Germany: 81.7 per cent

10. Ireland: 81.4 per cent

The Scandinavian quartet of Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden have been part of the top 10 every year.

Five economies have made it into the top 10 only once: Australia (this edition being the debut), Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands and South Africa.

Find the GGGR 2026 here.

Success story: Diversity and Bundesliga firsts at Thüringer HC

EHF European League 2024/25 title winners and 2025/26 runners-up Thüringer HC have a squad that represents four continents: Based in Germany, naturally there are Europeans, and featuring alongside them are players from Brazil, Japan and Egypt.

And it is in the latter that we find a particular reason to celebrate, as goalkeeper Maie Gomaa is the first player in the handball Bundesliga to wear a hijab while doing so. Why in particular is that a success story? To answer that we go back to a special feature published on Her Playground earlier in September.

Just over 20 years ago, Mouna Chebbah left her home, Tunisia, to pursue a professional handball career, which would take her through France, Denmark and Türkiye. If she was not the first African Muslim woman to play in the top European leagues, she was certainly among them or at least enjoyed the most success at that time, and was therefore a breakout in that sense.

“At that time, no woman was going alone in Europe, and having this adventure to leave her family,” Chebbah shared with Her Playground.

“I was really motivated and my parents, they said to me, ‘We accept you to go.’ And I decided. I had some contacts and I saw our men’s team, how they are famous there, how they are so, like, appreciated in the world. I said, ‘Why not? I will be the first woman going in Europe. And why not? I will do my best to prove myself. And why not? I will have a name in world handball.”

Being the first meant Chebbah encountered some lack of understanding of what her national and religious identities meant. She helped improve that understanding and show why, in a professional setting, people should be judged solely on their ability and nothing more. She also provided a role model for other girls and young women like her — something Chebbah herself did not have.

Fast forward to 2026 and Gomaa wearing a hijab, thereby more visibly and immediately showcasing her religion — an undeniable marker of increased diversity and acceptance in the handball community that also helps show other young women who make the choice to wear a hijab that being a professional handball player is a real possibility for them.

That empowering of girls and young women is the success, from Chebbah to Gomaa to a yet unknown future that promises broader representation on the highest-level handball courts.

Attacking the goal: What’s happening in handball?

Denmark claim maiden EHF EURO Cup title

Denmark have faced Norway in the last two finals of the Women’s EHF EURO and came away defeated on both occasions. The Scandinavian sides met in the final of the Women’s EHF EURO Cup, the pre-EURO tournament for teams directly qualified, in September, and this time it was Denmark that came out on top.

It was the third edition of the Women’s EHF EURO Cup, with Norway winning both previous trophies, in 2022 and 2024. In both those years, Norway went on to win the EHF EURO title as well.

Due to the number of teams directly qualified for the Women’s EHF EURO 2026 — Norway, Denmark and Hungary as the three medallists from 2024; Poland, Romania, Czechia, Türkiye and Slovakia as co-hosts — the Cup was played with a group phase first, from which the two top teams in each group qualified for the semi-finals.

The Cup then culminated with the first-time event, the EHF EURO Cup Finals. The Finals were played in Romania, with both the semi-finals and finals on the one weekend.

Denmark defeated Norway in the EURO Cup final 34:30. Romania beat Hungary 33:30 to claim third place.

In the semi-finals, Norway beat Hungary 27:23 and Denmark defeated Romania 28:20. That victory marked Norway’s 19th consecutive win in the EHF EURO Cup, stretching back through the previous editions. The loss to Denmark in the final brought that stunning streak to an end.

EHF Women’s Handball Media Summit held in Bucharest

The inaugural EHF Women’s Handball Media Summit was held on the fringe of the Women’s EHF EURO Cup Finals. The Summit aimed to gather in-house EHF media with experts from other organisations, both media and external, to collect input and exchange ideas about the visibility of women’s sport.

Among the attendees were Her Playground role model Katrine Lunde, members of the European Broadcasting Union, representatives from TV stations such as Denmark’s TV2, journalists and photographers.

The Summit took place over three days, from 25 to 27 September, and featured presentations, round tables and breakout group work sessions. The topics covered included the current status quo of women’s handball, challenges and opportunities and what women’s sport and its coverage will and could look like in 2040.

Women’s Handball Conference 2026 — Women in handball: Her Playground

The third edition of the Women’s Handball Conference (WHC), now traditionally held in conjunction with the Women’s EHF EURO, will take place again alongside the 2026 edition. This year, Katowice, Poland will play host to the event on 16 and 17 December.

The WHC 2026 programme takes its name from this very project — Women in handball: Her Playground. The WHC will gather leaders and experts in the European handball community, and other sporting, marketing and media sectors, for a series of lectures and panel discussions on different topics.

The core themes of the WHC 2026 are focused around development, visibility and support:

• Her Leadership: Best-case examples and practical tips from female leaders

• Her Visibility: Growing the visibility of the women's game and female athletes

• Her Environment: Creating a safe environment for female athletes

• Her Insights: The latest research and highlight projects from women's sport in Europe

Find the programme for the WHC 2026 (soon to be released) and tickets here.

One year of Her Playground

September saw Her Playground celebrate its one-year anniversary. The project was conceived following the Women’s EHF EURO 2024 and launched publicly on 15 September 2025.

In that first year, we have learnt a lot — we the team behind Her Playground, as we delved into topics that had never been explored on such a scale in handball; we being the girls and women in handball and those who support them, as we pushed ourselves out of our own and others’ comfort zones to participate in conversations we had never had before; we being the broader sports world, as women’s sport continues marching forward at a rapid pace; we being the world beyond sport, as 193 Member States work towards achieving United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal number five: Gender equality.

On Her Playground, we have examined subjects such as pregnancy and maternity leave, menstruation and the cycle, sport through the United Nations lens, social sustainability, breast cancer awareness, how women and girls in handball see themselves in the game, and mental health.

Her Playground launched with four official role models: Katrine Lunde, Andrea Lekic, Estelle Nze Minko and Joyce van Haaster. Since the launch last September, Lunde, the most titled player in handball, retired, while Nze Minko welcomed her first child — just two highlights as all four maintain active careers in different areas. Our role models are out there living the subjects that form our focus.

Just before the anniversary, we welcomed our fifth role model: Brazilian Barbara Arenhart.

We have worked hard to cover a broad range of topics, but there is so much to discover ahead and we look forward to doing so and sharing in that. The community around the project is an important element of that, taking part in the conversations with us, letting us know what you want to hear about and helping guide our way forward.

If you have a project or story you think we should know about, handball-related or not, reach out to us via herplayground@eurohandball.com or on our Facebook or Instagram pages.

Photos © kolektiff images/Uros Hocevar; International Cricket Council; Chelsea FC; Tima Miroshnichenko; Sabin Malisevschi / FRH