2012 European Women's Handball Championship

Initially on its meeting on 27 September 2008 the EHF awarded the championship to the Netherlands, defeating Ukraine in the second round of voting while Germany and Serbia withdrew their candidacy during the congress. This could have been the second time for Netherlands to host the tournament, however, on 4 June 2012 the Dutch Handball Federation announced they are unable to organize the European Championship. A day later the EHF re-launched the host selection process; ten nations had shown interest in organizing the competition, including Croatia, Denmark, Iceland, Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Sweden. Romania added their interest the day after. On 18 June 2012 the EHF granted the organizational rights to Serbia and also disposed of the fate of the Dutch national team. Since Serbia, the new host already qualified for the European Championship, the place reserved for the host nation was passed to Iceland as the best non-qualified team and the Netherlands were pulled out from the tournament. ==Venues==

Five venues in four cities had been selected to host the matches: == Qualification ==

Qualification matches were played from September 2011 to June 2012. Following the new system introduced for the 2010 Men's Championship, all teams were included in the qualification round, except Netherlands who were hosts before the withdrawal. Teams were divided in 7 groups and the two top ranked teams from each group qualified. Qualified teams :1 Bold indicates champion for that year. ==Squads==

12 referee pairs were selected: ==Seeding==

The draw was scheduled to be held on 6 June 2012 at 14:00 local time in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The draw procedure was announced on 15 May. It was canceled because of the withdrawal of the Dutch Handball Federation. ==Preliminary round==

The draw was held on 22 June 2012. The playing schedule was released on 13 July. All times are local (UTC+1). Group A ---- ---- Group B ---- ---- Group C ---- ---- Group D ---- ---- ==Main round==

Group I ---- ---- Group II ---- ---- ==Knockout stage==

Bracket Semifinals ---- Fifth place game Third place game Final ==Final ranking and statistics==

All-Star Team Top goalscorers Source: SportResult.com Top goalkeepers Source: SportResult.com == References ==