For the first time in history, 32 national teams have qualified for the World Men's Handball tournament for the 27th edition, which is held in Egypt.
Throughout history there have been 8 Arab national teams to appear in at least one IHF World Men's Handball Finals tournament.
Undoubtedly, the effective participation, at the World Men’s Handball Championship, of teams from the Arab world is providing much enthusiasm due to the game’s increasing popularity over the past two decades in our region.
Many Arab teams, namely those of Egypt, Tunisia, and Qatar, have performed particularly well at recent tournaments, and have built up an impressive and honorable set of results.
This year’s tournament witnessed the participation of six Arab teams, amid great ambitions that they will go on to achieve good results and go far.
In the same context, it's not the first time that this number of Arab handball teams has participated in a single tournament, with the 2003 edition seeing seven teams take part, namely Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait.
In the 2015 tournament, the Qatari team played its best performance, while it was in 2019 that the Egyptian team took bronze medal and the third place in the Youth World Championship and gold in the Junior World Cup.
The first prominent mark made by Arab teams in the World Championship was through the Egyptian national team, when it ranked fourth in the 2001 tourney, held in France. The feat was repeated by the Tunisian team in the 2005 championship, which was held in Tunisia.
The pharaohs team also holds the record for the number of times an Arab team has taken part in the tournament, having appeared at 15 different tournaments before 2021.
Furthermore, Algeria had participated in the World Handball Championship for 14 times.
It's worth mentioning that the first Arab appearance was at the 1964 World Championship by Egypt, and the Arabs were absent until 1967, when Tunisia participated to be the only Arab team.
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