International Amateur Handball Federation

The International Amateur Handball Federation (IAHF) was founded on 4 August 1928, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on the occasion of the 1928 Olympic Games. On 8 May 1934, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to include men’s field handball in the programme of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany. The first Men’s World Indoor Handball Championship was played in 1938, also in Berlin, but the federation would hold the last IAHF Congress in that same year.

Handball returned to the Olympics, still in the field handball variant, at Helsinki 1952, but only as a demonstration sport. Its return with full-Olympic status would only occur at München 1972, now in an indoor handball format. On both occasions, the sport was already overseen by the IAHF’s successor, the International Handball Federation (IHF), which was founded in 1946.