Last Thursday, 8 May, USA Men’s National Team Coach, Robert Hedin submitted his resignation to USA Team Handball. Here is an English translation of an article about his resignation from the German publication, Handball Woche.
Sensation in US handball
Robert Hedin resigns as men’s national coach, but not for sporting reasons
By Björn Pazen
The Olympic Games will take place in Los Angeles in three years, and since the announcement there have been countless initiatives to get Americans excited about handball, establish the sport in the USA and build competitive national teams. The IHF and the Forum Club Handball have invested a lot of money and manpower to water this delicate plant. One of the most important sports development workers is Robert Hedin, men’s national coach since 2018. Or rather: he was until last week. The Swede, world champion and Bundesliga professional as a player and then coach of the Norwegian national team, among other things, in Melsungen and Bregenz, had brought the men’s national team forward, even leading them to the regular round of the 2023 World Championship and to 20th place. At the 2025 World Championship, the US boys were on the verge of a sensation against Poland for 58 minutes in the final of the Presidents Cup, but ultimately lost by a narrow margin. In 2019 and 2023, they successfully qualified for the Pan American Games.
“The team’s development is outstanding, the boys’ commitment is incredible. We’re currently in the process of acquiring new players,” said Hedin, who was chosen from among 70 applicants for the job in 2018, a job that has since become his passion. But no one is getting rich: the players have to pay their own flights, and the costs of training camps in Europe were covered by income from sponsors that Hedin and German team manager Andreas Hertelt secured themselves. “I get $200 for every day I work with the team, but I always have to cover my travel expenses myself,” says Hedin. He financed his living as a coach for Norwegian clubs. “I was always grateful that they allowed me to support the US team during international weeks.” However, Hedin is currently without a club job and is looking for a new club.
There was virtually no financial support from the association; the team survived on its own sponsorship income. “The players, many of whom are students, cover all their travel expenses themselves because they desperately want to play for Team USA,” says Hedin. A training camp was supposed to take place last week, but Hedin had to cancel it. “The association informed us that our sponsorship money was needed to pay other outstanding invoices from the association.” That was the last straw: Hedin resigned from the association with immediate effect. “The association has been operating completely unprofessionally since it had a new managing director,” says Hedin. Due to financial irregularities at the association, the IHF has also cut funding, and project support is currently on hold. According to HW information, this could also be the reason why the IHF has withdrawn the wildcard it had originally promised the US women for the 2025 World Cup in the Netherlands and Germany.
And all of this could have serious consequences: “Without money, there’s no preparation for the World Cup and no preparation for the Olympics. It’s a real shame, because the athletic development is outstanding,” says Hedin. The US project presented at the 2025 World Cup in Denmark, with Mikkel Hansen, Nikola Karabatic, and Stine Oftedal as the most famous faces, won’t benefit the national teams financially either, as it’s more about the introduction of a professional league. Hedin’s only hope: “The association needs to reorganize itself as quickly as possible. There’s been a lot of talk there for the past seven years, but nothing has happened.”
