The tournaments of the qualifications for the 2022 European Championships in Split (August 27 – September 10) will be held in February and March.
The qualifications were supposed to start in November. However, the first qualification round has been canceled, due to the number of entered teams. There will be only one round
The draw of the qualification groups has been conducted. LEN informed the federations that the teams had been seeded by draw in groups according to the regulation and taking into consideration as much as possible geographical positioning.
These will be round-robin tournaments (four in men’s and three in women’s qualifications).
Men’s Qualifications
As for men, 17 teams, split into four groups, will participate in the qualifications. The top two teams from each group will advance to the European Championships.
Teams ranked 9th-16th at the 2020 Europeans (9 Germany, 10. Georgia, 11. Romania, 12. Turkey, 13. France, 14. Slovakia, 15. Netherlands, 16. Malta) and nine more teams will play in the qualifications.
The top eight teams from the 2020 ECH in Budapest are already qualified: 1. Hungary, 2. Spain, 3. Montenegro, 4. Croatia, 5. Serbia, 6. Italy, 7. Greece, 8. Russia.
The qualification tournaments will be played in Slovenia, Georgia, Malta, and Israel.
Group A (Slovenia)
Germany, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Belgium.
Group B (Georgia)
Georgia, Slovakia, Belarus, Poland.
Group C (Malta)
Romania, Malta, Lithuania, Ireland.
Group D (Israel)
Turkey, Netherlands, Ukraine, Israel.
Groups B, C, and D will be held between 18 and 20 February. The tournament with five teams (Group A) will start a day earlier (on February 17).
Women’s Qualifications
Fourteen teams will play in the qualifications for the Women’s European Championships.
They are split into three groups. The teams ranked 1st and 2nd will qualify for the ECH in Split.
Besides the nations ranked 6th-12th at the 34th ECH in Budapest in 2020 (6. Greece, 7. France, 8. Slovakia, 9. Israel, 11. Germany, 12. Serbia), eight teams will battle for the European Championships berths.
Croatia finished 10th at the last year’s Europeans, but the Croats qualified directly as the hosts, as well as the top five ranked teams in Budapest: 1. Spain, 2. Russia, 3. Hungary, 4. Netherlands, 5. Greece.
Group A (Romania)
Slovakia, Germany, Ukraine, Romania, Ireland.
Group B (Serbia)
Greece, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Belgium.
Group C (Malta)
France, Israel, Portugal, Malta.
Groups A and B will be played on February 17-20, while Group C will take place between March 4 and 6.
