The Gambia Handball Association (GHA), would, from Monday June 18th, 2007 start preparing for the forthcoming Handball championship called Challenge Trophy for Africa.

The International Handball Federation in their recent meeting held in Madrid, Spain introduced this championship.

According to a letter signed by both the president and Managing Director of the International Handball Federation, Hassan Moustafa and Frank Birkefeld and sent to the Gambia Handball Association, revealed that the main aim of the Challenge Trophy in Africa is to help the qualified players (men and women) in the continent and their teams to be introduced to the World’s top teams with a concrete support of the International Handball Federation.

The letter pointed out that all the less developed national teams (men and women) are pooled according to their geographic affiliation into the following zones:

Zone 2 - Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Senegal Sierra Leone, Mali and Mauritania.

Zone 3 - Benin, Burkina Faso, Niger, Togo, Ghana and Liberia.

Zone 4- Congo, Sao Tome, Central Africa, Gabon, Rwanda and Chad

Zone – 5  Ethiopia,  Somalia, Kenya, Burundi, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Djibouti.

Zone 6 - Mozambique, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The letter from IHF revealed that the above teams will compete in one tournament per zone and the five zone winners determine in a second tournament the Challenge Trophy winner.

“The challenge trophy winner qualifies for the African Championship and in a first step the challenge trophy will be staged for the men’s teams. In doing so, only players born in 1982 or later should participate,” the letter stressed.

Meanwhile according to Martin Johnson, Handball Director of Handball at the Gambia Handball Association said that they have called 28 male and 28 Female for training starting from Monday June 18, 2007 at the Independence Stadium in preparation for the Challenge trophy for Africa.

“After the screening process 14 male and 14 female would be selected to prepare the Challenge Trophy in Africa,” Mr. Johnson revealed.