2021 World Men's Handball Championship
The 2021 IHF World Men's Handball Championship was the 27th event hosted by the International Handball Federation and held in Egypt from 13 to 31 January 2021.
Starting with this edition, the World Championship was expanded from 24 teams to 32. It was also the third World Championship hosted in Africa, the second in Egypt, and the first to be hosted outside of Europe since 2015.
Denmark were the defending champions, having won their first World Championship title in 2019 on home soil. They defended the title by beating Sweden in the final, the second final between two Scandinavian countries in a row. On the way, Denmark defeated hosts Egypt in the quarter-finals, and the reigning European champions Spain in the semi-finals. The latter secured the bronze medal after defeating France in the third place game.
The tournament was played behind closed doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bidding process
Seven nations initially expressed interest in hosting the tournament:However, until the bidding phase expired on 15 April 2015, only three nations entered documents to bid for the event:
A decision was scheduled for [|4] June 2015, but the Congress was moved to 6 November 2015, where Egypt was chosen as the host.
Format
The 2021 edition saw a format change as the tournament was expanded. The 32 teams were split into eight groups of four teams each. The top three teams from each group progressed to the main round, while the teams ranked last in their preliminary round groups played the President's Cup. The 24 main round teams were divided into four groups of six teams each. The top two teams from each group advanced to the quarter-finals.Venues
Following is a list of all venues and host cities.Qualification
As is the previous editions, the World Championship host country and the current World directly qualified.After the decision about increasing the number of participating teams, changes were made in the proportional distribution of places by the Continental Confederations. The number of compulsory places awarded to each Continental Confederation was increased as follows: four places each for Africa, Asia, and Europe.Another change was relative to the Americas places.In 2019,the Pan-American zone was split into two zones: One was the North American and Caribbean Zone with one compulsory place, and the South and Central America Zone with three places. There was also a South and Central American Men's Last Chance Qualification Tournament which provided a qualification spot for the winning team.One additional place was available for Oceania, but only in the case where that national team would rank fifth or higher at the Asian Championship. Since no Oceania team placed among the top five at the Asian Championship, the IHF awarded an extra wild card.
In addition, there were 12 ranking places for the Continental Confederations, which were based on the teams ranked 1–12 of the preceding World Championship and World Ranking
and who were unable to qualify directly. and taking into consideration the results of the 2019 Men's World Championship, 32 places were distributed as follows:
- Host nation: 1
- Reigning world champion: 1
- Africa: 6
- Asia: 4
- Europe: 13
- Pan America: 5
- *North America and Caribbean: 1
- *South and Central America: 3
- * South and Central American Last Chance Qualification Tournament: 1
- Oceania/additional wild card: 1
- Wild card: 1
| Competition | Dates | Host | Vacancies | Qualified | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Host nation | 6 November 2015 |  hb|EGYDENGERhb|DENAUTNORSWEhb|CROhb|NORhb|ESPTUNhb|ALGhb|ANGhb|CPVhb|CODhb|MARhb|TUNDrawThe draw was held on 5 September 2020 at the Giza Pyramids Plateau. As hosts, Egypt had the privilege to assign itself to a group.SeedingOn 23 July 2020, the pots were announced.
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