There was a plethora of news from the recent Pan American Team Handball Federation Congress held in Brazil. I’ve been busy catching up on all of the EHF Champions League games this past weekend, so I haven’t prioritized time to comment on Pan American activities. (By the by, last weekend was one of the best ever in my opinion with 4 of the 5 key matches coming right down to the wire. My only complaint is the ehfTV www.ehftv.com video stream quality. If they were 1,500 kbs I would be in fat city.)

Fortunately, USA General Manager, Steve Pastorino, had a couple of informative write-ups on the Congress. In his first article http://www.usateamhandball.org/news/index.html?article_id=61 a key paragraph diplomatically mentions some past PATHF shortcomings:

“Some major shortcomings of the past four years were acknowledged as well, such as PATHF’s inconsistency in managing a federation website, disciplinary inequities relative to incidents involving Brazil, Argentina and Canada, as well as the handling of issues of Greenland, Cuba, and Chile related to global competitions. More time will be spent on these topics in the following days.”

Here’s some further explanation of the paragraph’s contents

– inconsistency in managing a federation website: The PATHF website has often been down and only has been sporadically updated

– disciplinary inequities relative to incidents involving Brazil, Argentina and Canada: Brazil and Argentina had a game ending brawl at the PANAM Games which resulted in only minor penalties. Meanwhile Canadian coach Stefan Rusimov was suspended for two years for a spitting incident.

Brazil – Argentina Brawl: http://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.360
Canadian Coach incident: http://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.533

– as well as the handling of issues of Greenland, Cuba, and Chile related to global competitions:

The PATHF’s handling of Greenland’s membership status was mishandled in a number of ways. First, it could be argued that their PATHF membership should never have been downgraded in the first place. But when their membership was downgraded it was not communicated to Greenland in a timely manner, preventing them from appealing and attempting to qualify for the World PANAM Championships.

Commentary: Why the recent downgrading of Greenland’s membership is wrong: http://teamhandballnews.com/news312.html
Greenland PATHF Membership still unresolved: http://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.500

In regards to Cuba and Chile the PATHF apparently mistakenly informed Chile that they would take Cuba’s place at the Men’s 2009 World Championships. http://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.614 Cuba, in fact, is still planning on participating.