EHF Anti-Doping Unit

About the EAU

Based on the decision of the 11th Ordinary Congress in July 2012 an independent EHF Anti-Doping Unit (EAU) was installed within the European Handball Federation.

The European Handball Federation places great importance on maintaining handball as a clean sport and sees doping as fundamentally contrary to the spirit of sport.

The creation of the EHF Anti-Doping Unit from 1 July 2012 will further strengthen the ability of the Federation, on a European level, not only to control and monitor but also to educate athletes and raise awareness of anti-doping issues.

The EHF Anti-Doping Unit will be responsible for the arrangement and carrying out of controls, the development of awareness for non-intentional doping, the education and information process for young athletes, the coordination with national anti-doping agencies in Europe, the handling of therapeutic exemptions and further anti-doping measures.

All activities in connection with the foundation of the EHF Anti-Doping Unit, handled in a close coordination with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Handball Federation (IHF), are approved accordingly.

EAU working for a clean sport!

There is always one message that Prof. Hans Holdhaus, the Head of the EHF Anti-Doping Unit, wants to bring across when talking about his daily work: "The sport has to be clean."

"Generally, it is our task to implement the requirements we receive from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in European competitions in cooperation with the International Handball Federation (IHF). And that, of course, involves doping tests in and out of competition,” Holdhaus explains.

"But the second field we work in is the field of education and information, and I think that’s even more important than the tests themselves."

"Thankfully, handball is among the sports in which doping is not the biggest topic of all. But the danger is that it could emerge through carelessness on the side of the player."

"The player doesn’t want to dope at all, but at the same time they don’t know the rules inside out. So, they for example, takes some dietary supplement and suddenly it becomes a doping case. And that’s the area in which we have to educate and inform."

Therefore, National Federations have been obliged to carry out their own education activities and EHF have requested that all players and officials make use of the ADeL e-learning tool provided by WADA.

ADeL is a free resource and provides comprehensive information for athletes, coaches, administrators and parents on anti-doping issues in sport.

We are proud to announce that in season 2018/2019, EAU carried out 326 doping tests in and out of competition, to which all tests were negative. Testing was carried out across all club and national team competitions and events including younger age category competitions, European Cup competitions and beach handball.