Cristian Zaharia and Bogdan Pasat, two key Board Members of the American Team Handball Association (ATHA), have resigned from their ATHA Board positions. The move was made shortly after the 2nd USOC open hearing to discuss the ATHA’s and Utah Team Handball Foundation (UTHF) proposals to become the National Governing Body (NGB) for Team Handball in the United States.
According to Bogdan Pasat, the move was made as a result of ATHA Board Chairman,Mariusz Wartalowicz’s failure to properly emphasize ATHA’s willingness to work openly with all elements of the American Handball community. This directly conflicted with an earlier ATHA Board decision that was essentially deigned to give notice to the USOC and the UTHF, that the ATHA would not only work with the UTHF but it would also consider absorbing it for the sake of team handball development.
Bogdan Pasat Note on Houston Website: http://houstonhandball.org/comment.php?comment.news.613
Analysis: With two of the three board members who were physically present at the USOC open hearings resigning the ATHA bid is in an untenable position. The USOC can only conclude that the ATHA is not ready to manage the sport effectively if it can be openly split by internal politics in the middle of a competitive bidding process. The USOC’s decision is now to simply determine whether the UTHF bid is acceptable or not.