A new standard set at Romania 2026
The 2026 IHF Women's Youth World Championship in Romania has set a groundbreaking example by having 10 teams led by female coaches among the 32 nations competing. This milestone reflects a broader movement across continents, as women from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas take on coaching roles. The presence of female leaders in these teams signals a growing push for greater representation in handball coaching and highlights the sport’s evolving landscape.
Each of the 10 female coaches brings unique insights to the tournament. In Africa, Algeria is guided by Nadia Benzine, Angola by Katia Santos, and Guinea by Clementine Mara Titi. From Asia, Japan is led by Jang So Hee. Europe contributes the most with Petra Vitkova (Czechia), Sandra Fernandes (Portugal), Vesna Bojkovic (Serbia), Cristina Cabeza (Spain), and Victorina Bora (Romania), the host nation. In North America and the Caribbean, Selene Hernandez Cifuentes is in charge of Mexico’s youth team. These women are not just coaches but also trailblazers shaping the future of the sport.
New initiatives to expand women's roles
This shift is supported by recent efforts from the International Handball Federation, which launched the Women’s Handball Working Group. Katrine Lunde, the group’s chair, is a former Norwegian goalkeeper with a long history in the sport. Her leadership brings together experienced voices to drive forward a four-year plan aimed at increasing opportunities for women and girls in handball. The group's mission includes creating more pathways for coaching, refereeing, and leadership at all levels.
The Women’s Handball Working Group includes members from diverse backgrounds such as ex-players, referees, federation leaders, and national team coaches. It unites individuals like Nair Filipe Pires de Almeida Vilaca (Angola) and Eduarda Amorim (Brazil), former elite players; Mitra Noori (Islamic Republic of Iran), an IHF delegate and ethics commission chair; Saribel Deslauriers (Canada), a board secretary for Handball Canada; Helle Thomsen (Denmark), a national team coach; and Julie and Charlotte Bonaventura, former IHF referees. Their combined expertise spans all aspects of the game, ensuring that decisions reflect both on-court realities and off-court strategies.
The group is also intentionally global in its composition, with members from Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South and Central America. This reflects the IHF’s goal to support handball beyond traditional strongholds and promote development worldwide. The working group was created following the IHF Four-Year Plan 2026–2029, which outlines clear priorities: attracting more girls to handball, educating female referees, promoting women in leadership roles, and building a stronger framework for women's handball in every region.
One of the group's key objectives is to connect development projects with competition structures to ensure that progress for women is embedded across all levels of the sport. By fostering collaboration and addressing challenges directly, the initiative aims to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for female coaches, players, and officials.
Cristina Cabeza speaks on challenges for women
Cristina Cabeza, Spain’s coach at the tournament, emphasizes the importance of visibility in attracting more women to coaching. As a former center back, she recalls how her teammates often predicted a coaching career for her. Now, as a coach, Cabeza believes that seeing more women in leadership roles is crucial for inspiring the next generation. She also highlights the practical challenges female coaches face, especially when it comes to balancing family life with a coaching career.
Many women players retire around the time they are considering starting a family, creating a natural overlap that makes it difficult to pursue coaching as a full-time career. Cabeza acknowledges this barrier and stresses the need for support structures that make it easier for women to manage both roles. She points to improvements in Spain, where better access to coaching courses and training programs is helping more women enter and thrive in the field.
Cabeza’s perspective reflects a broader trend: as more doors open in coaching, the sport is slowly shifting from traditional male-dominated leadership to a more balanced representation. This change, as Cabeza and others argue, is not just a step forward but a necessary evolution for the long-term health of the game.
