Sydney Uni HC bound for Handball World Cup, signs global sponsorships

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 16 August 2012

Sydney, 16 August 2012 – As the first ever Australian club team, Sydney Uni HC qualified for the official Handball Club World Cup, held in Doha from 27 August to 1 September. The pure amateur team from Sydney will meet all other continental champions, some of which count a raft of Olympic medallists in their squads, coming straight from London. While the sport of handball has a relatively low profile in Australia, the appearance on the world stage has resulted in two international sponsorship deals for Sydney Uni.

Despite being a pure amateur sport in Australia, Sydney Uni HC managed to qualify for the IHF Super Globe, comparable to the FIFA Club World Cup in soccer, by winning the Oceania Club Champions Cup in Tahiti in November 2011. This unexpected qualification will see Sydney Uni now being catapulted onto the handball world stage where they will face a field of the best professional teams from around the globe.

It will be a clash of very different handball worlds, with the amateurs of Sydney Uni competing with clubs like German champions THW Kiel who boast a squad full of world and European champions, work with a budget of more than15 million Euro per year and attract TV audiences of several million viewers on a weekly basis.

The Sydney Uni team will go from playing in front of modest crowds in the NSW handball competition to being broadcast globally via European broadcasters and Al Jazeera Sport. As a result of this global coverage, Sydney Uni was able to sign two international sponsorship deals – one with Swedish sportswear company Salming, the other with Sino-Australian company Clenergy which specialises in renewable energy solutions.

The team of coach Philipp Enders is in the final stages of an intense 5 month preparation, during which the club has been dominating the local NSW League. Despite counting 5 Australian national team members and a number of players with experience in European leagues in its squad, progressing to the semi finals at the Super Globe would be seen a massive surprise.

Sydney Uni HC is one of Australia’s leading handball clubs. Its mens and womesn teams consist of numerous Australian national team members as well as international students and expats. They compete in the NSW Handball League.

Ends.

Sport:Handball (also European Handball or Team Handball)
Event:IHF Super Globe, official Club World Cup http://bit.ly/SuperGlobe
Team:Sydney Uni Handball Club – www.sydneyunihandball.com

Sponsors:Salming - www.salminghandball.com
Clenergy - www.clenergy.com

Please contact us for interview opportunities or attendance of a training session. The squad will depart from Sydney airport on Saturday, 25 August at 7pm

Images: Downloads hi-res (free to use) from http://bit.ly/SUHC_images

The Sydney Uni HC handball team is bound for the Club World Cup in Qatar.

Coach Philipp Enders and team captain Christoph Niebel are looking forward to the challenge of being on the handball world stage.