Seminar gets officials prepared for Women's EHF EURO 2026

The delegates, referees and experts gathered in Vienna for the 'Officials' Preparory Seminar' from Friday until Sunday to get ready in the best possible way for the Women's EHF EURO 2026. The three-day programme was designed to make sure that all appointed officials are fully prepared for the operational, technical and regulatory demands of the tournament.

The combination of practical sessions, expert input, scenario-based discussions and targeted preparations, the seminar aligned standards, clarified procedures, and strengthened coordination across all officiating functions. The main target? A consistent and professional approach throughout the EHF EURO.

The various sessions touched on topics like changes in officiating and the EHF EURO officiating line, (social) media management, mental training, taking decisions under high pressure, and the use of video replay, among other subjects.

The seminar ended with a collective review on Sunday, where the feedback from the participants was positive.

"I feel well-prepared. This will be my fourth European Championship, so I know how important these preparatory seminars are," said Simona Raluca Stancu, EHF Referee from Romania.

"At the same time, every EURO is different and brings new challenges. I am focused on delivering a consistent performance, collaborating well with my partner, and giving our best in every match.”

For her as an experienced referee, Raluca Stancu added that "the exchange of experiences and the discussions regarding match situations" was the most interesting part.

"It was something truly special. After so many years of refereeing, I still believe we can always learn something from others. That is what I appreciate the most."

Her fellow referee Pierre Vauchez from France looked back at the seminar in a similar way.

"Overall, I found the seminar very interesting and useful. It was a great opportunity to exchange and share experiences with the other referees and to learn from each other. I particularly appreciated the practical approach and the quality of the interventions throughout the three days," Vauchez said.

Like also heard from other participants, Vauchez added he appreciated the quality of the discussions and the integration of mental preparation.

The referee singled out a lecture by guest speaker, Captain Tomislav Dolovski, on 'Precision under pressure: Standardised protocols in high-stakes professions'.

"I found the parallels with refereeing and performance very interesting, especially the importance of methods, communication, decision-making, and staying focused under pressure," Vauchez said.

Reflecting on his key note, Dolovski said "it was about the decision-making process, protocols, situation awareness, resilience and everything needed to make a good decision under pressure."

Dolovski drew comparisons to aviation, and what handball officials can learn from the process behind our decision-making there.

"They can learn how we use checklist procedure callouts that are helping us withing that decision-making process," Dolovski explained. "And also, how to act and how to preserve focus, and stress level at the top performance to react and adapt to new disturbances."

The officials also received relevant input from another sport: basketball. Davorin Nakic, FIBA Europe Officiating Advisor and former Head of Refeering, underlined the similarity of topics and issues within both sports.

"It’s very important that we can take out a lot of things which we didn’t recognise in our sport and we can implement from other sports. And I think that is more and more important to make this cross-sport cooperation, especially in smaller countries without facilities and higher budget, also in the topics of physical education, sports psychologists, referee observers," Nakic said.

"Each sport has some very good points, and it’s a shame that we are not using some things that other sports recognised and implement them to our sport," he added, before joking: "The best is to learn from mistakes of others, not ours."

all photos © kolektiff / Jozo Cabraja & Uros Hocevar