[i]Der Spiegel[/i] has posted a new story providing more detail concerning salaries and honorariums for top IHF officials: http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,679098,00.html

The following is a direct translation of the article that appears on Der Spiegel's internet site:

“IHF president Moustafa gets an increase of 1,567 percent

The total annual ‘expense allowances’ for the top officials in the International Handball Federation (IHF) will, according to information obtained by [i]Der Spiegel[/i], increase from 204,000 Swiss Francs per year to 1,325,000 per year. The increase for President Hassan Moustafa is particularly drastic.

The top officials of the IHF allow themselves a magnificent compensation for their services. This becomes clear in a document from the IHF Council that had until now been kept secret; the Council is the forum for the 17 IHF top officials. According to this document, when the Council met last December in Nanjing, China, they arranged for themselves an increase in the expense allowances from an aggregate of 204,000 Sw.Frs. to 1,325,000 Sw.Frs.

The most grandiose increase concerns the president: 1,567 percent. The Egyptian Hassan Moustafa, who last summer was re-elected in his position until 2013, will now get 500,000 per year instead of 30,000.

The Council members also allow themselves an increase in their daily allowances – instead of 250 Sw.Frs. per day, when they are on duty for the IHF, they will now receive 400. For Moustafa this adds up to a six-digit amount, as he last year claimed to have been on duty for the IHF during 280 days.”

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Note: The current exchange rate is $1 = .929 Swiss Francs

[i]THN[/i]: it is possible that [i]Der Spiegel[/i] will offer additional information in its printed version which appears on Monday. We will hold off on any commentary in the meantime. For the sake of a better understanding of the different forms of monetary compensation inside the IHF, the readers may wish to refer to an earlier article: http://teamhandballnews.com/news.php?item.932

Some clarifications may, however, be useful regarding the report in [i]Der Spiegel[/i]:
What is referred to as ‘expense allowance’ may be more appropriately regarded as an honorarium, an annual lump sum in lieu of salary, given that the elected officials are volunteers and not employees.
As reported in the article linked above, the Council approved a request from president Moustafa to become a full-time employee of the IHF. In other words, the 30,000 Sw.Frs. was an honorarium, while the 500,000 is a salary, so technically it is a comparison of ‘apples and pears’. On the other hand, if the president previously was already on duty 280 days per year, then perhaps Der Spiegel is implicitly asking how much more the IHF could get for its money when now hiring the president as an employee at a salary of 500,000.

The ‘daily allowances’ mentioned by [i]Der Spiegel [/i]are really best seen as ‘pocket money’. Expenses related to meals, hotels and travel are taken care of separately by the IHF. Also, these allowances are normally paid only when someone is on duty away from home, for instance, at a World Championship, conference or meeting. In other words, if the president will now be de facto residing in Basle, it is not clear if he really should/will receive the daily allowance for the many days when he will be present at Headquarters.