The Jarun Cup 2025 not only featured a record-breaking 48 senior men’s and women’s teams packed full of multiple championship-winning and All-star Team national team players, but a number of younger age category events and the next generation of possible European Handball Federation (EHF) beach handball referees.
The EHF selected the Jarun Cup to debut their ‘EHF Beach Handball Candidate Referee Programme’ with the first stage of three in total being held at the event in Zagreb, Croatia which took place from 1 to 4 May.
Four referee couples – Marin Malinic and Andro Vucetic (Croatia), Greta Osvai and Alexandra Krisztina Rubint (Hungary), Michal Jakubek and Mikolaj Marcinkowski (Poland) and Marija Radoicic and Jovana Mrksic (Serbia) – were nominated by their national federations to the EHF to participate in the programme which ran across all four days.
The newly-implemented initiative aims to empower the next generation of beach handball referees and develop future international referees through training and mentorship, while helping them gain practical experience at top EHF European Beach Handball Tour (ebt) tournaments.
Imparting knowledge and experience
On the ground in Zagreb was Georgiana Doana, EHF Beach Handball Lecturer, who guided and mentored the group of eight through assessments and training which included workshops, learning sessions, physical and theoretical exams, presentations and onsite officiating.
“It was quite interesting for me because they are from different countries and different cultures,” explained Doana about the past week spent with the candidates. “They are growing every day. I was a referee once and now a delegate, so, for me, it’s really, really important to take care of referees. I like to work with referees, especially young referees, and that’s why I love this job.
“I have been watching how they whistle, and, of course, teaching them how to be a good referee – they need to practice; they need tournaments and they need mentors to guide them,” she added.
“It’s important to see how they grow. If they learn something from what I am teaching them, this is the most important thing – if they apply what I tell them, using my advice and my knowledge to do their best.”
And Serbian referee Jovana Mrksic was full of praise for Doana, who is a current delegate for both the IHF and EHF, and former referee,
“It’s been really good, because she was once a beach handball referee, and she really knows what to say to us because she was in that position,” says Mrksic. “She knows what things to concentrate on and for what to look for.”
“It’s an honour to learn from Georgiana,” added Croatian referee Marin Malinic. “Massive respect to her. She’s a great teacher, and what we’ve got is a very good education – the other referees will say the same.”
An indoor road to the sand
The bubbly Serbian pair of Mrksic, 20 and Marija Radoicic, 23, both from Novi Sad, provide a good example of that new generation – having started less than a year ago at a beach handball event in their home city last August.
“We were already indoor referees and then the Serbian Handball Federation called us and said they didn’t have many beach handball referees,” explains Mrksic. “We knew beach handball can be played anywhere so we thought we can go ‘here, here and here’, so we said ‘OK, we will do it’.
“We felt proud to be invited to this programme as we actually did not expect that at all. We feel really good – to be nominated for this programme is some level of compliment. Actually, we were so excited about making our presentation, we were like; ‘is this too much, is this a little bit too little?’. We wanted it to be perfect.”
The Serbian pair started their whistling career indoor, after the Serbian Handball Federation asked them to whistle a championship game together in Vojvodina and since then, they have been inseparable, despite an unsure start.
“The federation told us; ‘Girls, can you meet there? We want a new pair of referees’,” explains Mrksic. “At first, I didn’t want to pair with her because I didn’t know her and I was in panic mode; ‘I don’t want somebody new now’, but they were like, ‘please, just go, both of you’. We didn’t have our partners, so we said ‘ok, this one match’, and then we stayed together.”
“It was the best decision ever,” adds Radoicic, with a big smile.
From volunteer to championship referee
The Polish pair of Michal Jakubek and Mikolaj Marcinkowski have been whistling together indoor since 2018, adding the sand courts to their skillset a few years later, after Michal experienced the 2019 EURO in Stare Jablonki, Poland as a volunteer scorekeeper and timekeeper.
“I started concentrating and focusing on beach handball from then,” explains Jakubek, who is from Warsaw. “Now, we are doing everything we can in Poland, officiating the most important matches including men’s finals of the Polish championship or Polish cup, but now it is time for the next step.”
A packed schedule at ebt summer opener
The Jarun Cup is the traditional opener of the summer ebt season and provides a festival-like atmosphere on Lake Jarun in Zagreb, complete with food trucks, bars and a large crowd of spectators.
“The Jarun Cup is very free and easy,” explained Hungarian referee Greta Osvai, 27 about the event. “It’s great to be here. It’s very good. We know a lot of the players from Hungary and have whistled some of them who are playing in the Slovakian teams.”
Now in its 17th year, the event not only provides opportunities for players from across the world to learn the game while competing against some of the world’s best players, but it provides referees the opportunity to whistle some of the best in the world too.
For Croatian pair Marin Malinic and Andro Vucetic, both from Rijeka, the Jarun Cup holds a special place for them, as it was where they whistled their first-ever beach handball game together, at the 2024 edition.
“It was a youth game between two Zagreb suburbs,” explains Malinic. “Actually, it was a very pressurised game. The players didn’t really know us well, and they didn’t really know how to play, but the coaches were ramping up the pressure, so it was a cauldron of fire.
“When they’re young, you have to talk to them all the time and listen,” added the 22-year-old, who, with his partner have been whistling senior and younger age category games this year. “You help them with the rules, certain things; fix your leg work, don’t do that much contact, please don’t do that. It’s a part of the job.
“As well as with older people and seniors and children, you have to have that communication with them. You have to talk to them and sometimes you have to throw a joke around to make them feel more at home, more easy. They play better in that system, and we referee better as well.”
Learning, moving forward and hopes for the future
With the first stage of the EHF Beach Handball Candidate Referee Programme now complete, the four pairs will await their assessments to see if they move forward, but whatever happens, all of those involved will continue to give their all on the sand.
“We always see EHF beach referees but you’re never really sure if you’re ever going to become one,” says Malinic. “It’s a very hard job to do, and it’s very hard to get there. We’re very grateful to the Croatian Handball Federation for giving us this great chance.
“We try to do our jobs as best as we can,” he continued. “We’re always honest. When we make a mistake, we say, ‘listen, we’re sorry’. Everyone makes mistakes, but the main thing is, we do our best.”
And some last words of encouragement from Mrksic for anyone thinking of taking up the whistle on the sand. “I would tell them to go for it,” added the 20-year-old, who is from Novi Sad.
“Try it,” she says with a big smile. “There really is nothing to lose.”
About the EHF Beach Handball Candidate Referee Programme
The 2025 EHF Beach Handball Candidate Referee Programme consists of three stages, featuring 10 different referee pairs.
Three pairs will be present at part two taking place at the Diego Carrasco International Cup in Torrox, Spain, between 19 and 23 June with the third and final part concluding with another three pairs at the Thessaloniki ebt stage in Greece from 17 to 21 July.
Pictures: Paweł Jakubowski/PAWI.PL & Jozo Cabraja / kolektiff
