The German national handball team will kick off the tournament in Munich, which will take place from January 13 or 14 to 31, 2027, with 32 national teams in the north, south, east and west of Germany. Stuttgart, Magdeburg, Kiel, Hannover and Cologne are further venues where the best handball players in the world will compete for the world championship title.
“This tournament will touch all of Germany,” says Andreas Michelmann, President of the German Handball Federation. ”These venues combine many of the things that define us: they are centers of the Bundesliga, they stand for tradition, but – like Munich with the new SAP Garden – also for modernity. With this great infrastructure, we are ready for another highlight in the decade of handball.”
The World Championship will start in the SAP Garden, which only opened a few weeks ago, as well as in the Porsche Arena in Stuttgart, the Wunderino Arena in Kiel and the GETEC Arena in Magdeburg. Each venue will host two preliminary round groups, each with four teams. The final schedule is still being coordinated with the IHF. The top three finishers will advance to the main round, which will be played in two groups of six teams each in the LANXESS arena in Cologne and the ZAG arena in Hannover. The quarterfinals, semifinals, classification matches and medal matches will also take place in Cologne, where the new world champion will be crowned on January 31, 2027, 20 years to the day after the German handball team's World Cup triumph.
Key dates for the 2027 World Cup:
Preliminary round: January 13 or 14 to 19 in Munich, Stuttgart, Kiel and Magdeburg.
Main round: January 20 to 25 in Cologne and Hannover.
Final round: January 26 to 31 in Cologne.
Photo: FloHagena.com / SAP GARDEN