Sweden's handball champions came to the home World Cup in January as reigning European champions, but had to settle for fourth place. However, the blue and yellow folk festivals in Gothenburg and Stockholm contributed strongly to the plus result of SEK 25 million, money that will be reinvested in Swedish handball.

The numbers far exceed expectations.

"We were a little worried from the beginning, partly based on the effects of the pandemic because we started the project in the middle of it. Then came the war in Ukraine and on that came inflation," says Krister Bergström.

'Pent-up need'

With the benefit of hindsight, he notes that Sweden has had some flak with the allocation of championships. Euro 2020 (with a result of ten million) was completed just before large parts of the world shut down due to covid. And now the World Cup, which was co-organized with Poland, became the first men's championship with normalcy after the pandemic.

Not only Sweden attracted large audiences, but also, for example, Iceland in Kristianstad and Denmark in Malmö.

"There was a clearly pent-up need and a demand to see world-class handball. We were done with our sales targets even before the World Cup started," the World Cup base said.

The Swedish Handball Federation's chairman Fredrik Rapp says in a statement that the World Cup win provides "security for many years to come". At the same time, more championships await on Swedish soil around the corner. The Women's World Cup 2023, the Men's European Championship 2026 and the Women's European Championship 2028 all have Sweden, Norway and Denmark as cooperating host nations.

The Women's World Cup, with Gothenburg and Helsingborg as the only Swedish host cities, begins on November 29. The championship does not have the potential to be as profitable as the men's World Cup.

"I think our result, if we manage to get a commitment out in the country, will be below ten million but above zero.

Responding to criticism

Some of the criticism during the Men's World Cup was about the schedule during the knockout matches. The world champions from Denmark, for example, had to fling back and forth between Stockholm and Gdansk during the final week – and the Danish fans only knew at the last minute where the team would play the semi-finals.

"It was a construction from the IHF (International Handball Federation) that both we and Poland questioned from the beginning, now it has been removed for the Women's World Cup," bergstrom says.

TT: There was also some criticism after the World Cup, from, among others, Swedish players who complained about the hotel food?

"There's always stuff you can screw up, but I think most people agree that it was a fantastic championship. The International Federation and the teams in general judge it as if we did world-class things, so we are extremely pleased.

- Then it's always like that... If you're talking to old national team players, they also went out and ate pizza in town during a championship. So it's not weird.