[html] The IHF has officially announced that the Asian Olympic Qualification Replay will be only a two nation event between Japan and South Korea. Japan will host the winner take all matches at Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo. The women will play on Tuesday, 29 January and the men will play the next day. The other nations that participated in the original tournament have indicated that they will not participate.
Meanwhile, the Japan Times reports, that the Asian Handball Federation (AHF) has notified the IHF that they may decide to appeal the IHF’s decision to hold the two team replay to the International Sports Arbitration Council. Additionally, unverified news group postings have indicated that the AHF Executive Council will be meeting on 27 January and may even decide to remove Japan and South Korea from the AHF.

IHF Notice: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=57&idart=1009Japan Times Article:http://search.japantimes.co.jp/rss/sp20080120a4.html

Commentary: Note to AHF: Be very careful what you wish for. Loudly complaining in the halls of your respective nations is one thing, but appealing to the neutral International Sports Arbitration Council is another thing entirely. Perhaps the AHF will ask for the Arbitration Council to only narrowly address the IHF”s right to interfere with AHF matters. But, if the Arbitration Council investigates the tournaments fully they could very well come to the same conclusions that the IHF did. This would simply publicize the controversy even more and who knows, maybe the IOC will decide to take some action. [/html]