Why does the national team win and handball doesn't improve? "Medals don't give money"

What a week, the last of January, with half a million Spaniards in front of the television, radios narrating the national team matches, a handful of articles like this, what a week, the last of January.

But that's it.

If nothing strange happens, perhaps except for a Barça Champions League, in the remainder of the year there will be no more talk of handball and nothing happens either.

It is usual, it is customary.

For a decade, sport has survived like this: the Games, the World Cup or the European Championships attract the attention of the majority of sports fans, the Asobal League hardly interests a few.

The reasons have already been explained, the money left with the housing bubble, the clubs went bankrupt, the players emigrated, but... Why doesn't anything improve?

It should be remembered that, before the bronze in the World Cup this Sunday, Spain won a World Cup in a packed Palau Sant Jordi, which later held two European Championships in a row and another medal was hung at the Olympic Games.

Right now he has five consecutive podiums.

«The national team and the clubs live two separate, very different realities, there is no union.

That's why medals don't give teams money, they don't attract sponsors.

Every year we decide that the success of Spain will help handball, but it is not like that.

I am pessimistic, the league is not interesting, the teams do not have economic power and it is even difficult for us to maintain budgets, "says

, now the coach of Ademar de León, before the national team and before, in the happy years, coach of teams that competed in Europe like Teka, Valladolid or Ademar himself.

In recent years he has seen how all the interesting players under his orders left abroad without remedy: the last

, only 19 years old, heading to Porto.

With a team that has never played a semifinal, Portugal already has a better league than Spain.

The inequality of Asobal, where Barcelona is close to 10 million budgets and the second team, Bidasoa, is around 1.5 million, is exaggerated.

«Years ago we lived in a bubble, with real estate investments, then there was a major crisis and now some health has been achieved, there are no more debts, there are no default problems, but there are a lack of resources.

It is costing a lot”, comments

, goalkeeper for Teka, Ademar, Portland or Ciudad Real, world champion with Spain in 2005 and now president of the Madrid Handball Federation.

"I no longer trust"

His feeling is similar to that shared by the players from Spain, already fed up with false responsibility.

Some time ago it was a motivation, winning to revive handball, what an incentive, but now nobody thinks about that.

To begin with, because only two,

and

, play for Asobal.

And to finish because they have already seen that successes are forgotten in 48 hours, maybe even in 24 hours.

"It won't change anything.

A few years ago, after the 2013 World Cup, it was desperate.

He believed that the audiences would attract two or three sponsors, that some teams would improve and that Asobal would grow again.

Now I no longer trust.

Even if millions of people see us, Asobal will continue to be the same and there will continue to be a lack of investment on all sides, ”

, who left Spain a decade ago and now, despite the age of 36 , explained this Sunday with the bronze around his neck.

He plans to return because the offers that come to him barely exceed 1,000 euros.

"You can't live, it's a semi-professional sport," he claimed.

Thanks to the successes, the Spanish Handball Federation does have a generous budget and major sponsors -Santander, Iberdrola, Sacyr, Helvetia, Renfe, Correos...- and the youth academy maintains its level -the youth and junior teams are champions of Europe-.

Not surprisingly, the number of licenses has remained around 90,000 since the beginning of the millennium.

But the clubs live a much less successful reality.

Medals from the national team can now come, such as the bronze in the World Cup this Sunday, the country can now be kept in the elite for another 10 years, the Asobal League will not come out of the abyss.

What a week, the last of January, too bad it's the only one.

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