There is nothing wrong about events that use the best players in the world to make good propaganda for our sport. Indeed, I hope that the IHF could work out arrangements with leagues and clubs that make ‘all-star’ matches in different forms and suitable locations a good and uncontroversial way of creating good PR.
But it is something totally different, if one wants to arrange something that purports to be some kind of World Championship for club teams. Such an event can be well justified, although perhaps not necessarily every year. The non-Europeans club teams follow the EHF Champions League with envy, and clearly relish the opportunity to play against such opponents.
This kind of events could take many forms, in terms of the number of participants, the format for the event, the scheduling in the annual calendar etc. But to deserve any respect and have any meaning, such an event must then really be an event between genuine club teams.
It is not enough to say that is in accordance with existing transfer regulations that a Qatari or Lebanese club participating in Super Globe can use its vast financial resources to borrow some of the best players in the world for two weeks in order to be competitive in the Super Globe! Why then did not the IHF subsidize the Australian club so that they could borrow some top players from Montpellier, Veszprem or Hamburg…?
Who in the world of handball could really take the results from such an event seriously? Who would find it relevant if a Qatari club with the help of Balic, Lazarov, Alilovic, Jorgensen et al. manages to beat a Lebanese team with similar reinforcements, a Brazilian team without such reinforcements or even a Ciudad Real that is getting ready for what really matters to them, namely the EHF Final Four?
Again, use as many ‘all-star’ events as the players can handle in order to make propaganda. And please do create a serious world championship for club teams. But do not mix and confuse the two concepts in the form we now see in Super Globe! Whoever wins the all-star event in Qatar have no legitimacy as ‘World Champions!’
Link to IHF’s initial announcement: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=57&idart=2636
Link to IHF’s pompous presentation and special web site today: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=345