Pan-American Team Handball Federation

Pan-American Team Handball Federation (PATHF)
SuccessorNorth America and the Caribbean Handball Confederation,
South and Central America Handball Confederation
Formation23 May 1977; 47 years ago (1977-05-23)
Dissolved3 July 2019; 5 years ago (2019-07-03)
TypeSports Federation
HeadquartersBuenos Aires, Argentina Argentina
Region served
Americas
Membership
26 Member Federations
Official language
Spanish and English
President
First — Dr. Peter Buehning Sr. United States
LastMario Moccia Argentina
Secretary General
First — Walter Schwedhelm Mexico
Last — Héctor Fernández Bogdanic Chile
Websitewww.PanAmHandball.org

The Pan-American Team Handball Federation (PATHF) has been the continental governing body for handball, beach handball, wheelchair handball and snow handball in Americas since 23 May 1977. PATHF includes North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. PATHF's primary functions is to organize competitions for national teams and clubs, and to conduct Men's World Handball Championship and Women's World Handball Championship qualifying tournaments.

On 14 January 2018, during the IHF Council meeting, PATHF was suspended by International Handball Federation and was divided into two continental confederations namely the North America and the Caribbean Handball Confederation and the South and Central America Handball Confederation. The IHF Council decision was taken on the facts that there are no signs of development in the level of handball and beach handball in the North American, Central American and the Caribbean countries. There was some development in South American level but that was also not comparable to the other continents like Europe, Asia and Africa.[1] No team from Americas had ever reached to the semifinal stage of the IHF World Men's Handball Championship and the IHF Men's Junior World Championship till date. The PATHF appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and it annulled IHF's decision.[2] At the Extraordinary IHF Congress 2019 the IHF statues were revised to add the new federations.[3][4]

  1. ^ "IHF statement related to Pan-American continent". IHF. 19 January 2018.
  2. ^ IHF refuse to stop plan to split Pan American body in two despite losing CAS case - Michael Pavitt, Inside the Games, 25 September 2018
  3. ^ Rockstroh, Jessica (30 April 2019). "Revised motions from IHF Council related to Article 11 of the IHF Statutes" (PDF; 255 KB). International Handball Federation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  4. ^ "Now six Continental Confederations: IHF splits Panamerican Handball Federation into North and South". handball world. 3 July 2019. Archived from the original on 27 December 2019. Retrieved 27 December 2019.