The short update http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=132&idart=383 from the recent IHF Council Meeting contains just enough information to tease and raises a lot of questions:

The elimination of continental federation responsibility to qualify entrants for the World Championships:
– Will there still be several representatives from each continental area?
– Will existing continental championships lose their importance now that they won’t factor into World Championship qualification?

Challenge Trophy Tournament Restructuring
– Does this mean that future challenge trophy tournaments will ignore continental boundaries?
– How will it be decided which nations participate?

World League for Clubs
– What is the point of this when there is such a tremendous gap in quality between the clubs in Europe and the rest of the world?

The IHF website indicates that more information concerning these items will be made available soon. Hopefully that will clear up these questions and others.