European club handball returned in late August 2020, as the qualification rounds for the new EHF European League got underway.

Meanwhile, Europe’s premium competition for men and women, the EHF Champions League, threw off in September.

The start of the top flight saw changes to the competition structure for men and women, with both the DELO EHF Champions League and the EHF Champions League Men introducing a group phase featuring two groups of eight teams.

The EHF Champions League Men’s group matches were set for Wednesday and Thursday evenings each week, with the DELO EHF Champions League group phase played on Saturdays and Sundays.

In both competitions, the top two teams in each group will advance to the quarter-finals, while the teams placed third to sixth in each group will face each other in the play-offs to progress.

The winners of each of the double-header quarter-finals will move on to the EHF FINAL4 events, with the men’s competition once again heading to Cologne and the DELO EHF FINAL4 to Budapest.

For 2020/21, DELO were named the title sponsors of the women’s competition for a second successive season.

In the EHF European League, a total of 51 clubs competed over two qualification rounds for the 24 places available in the men’s group phase, while the women’s competition saw 34 entries for 16 group phase spots.

A total of 12 teams were pre-qualified for the men’s group phase, and four women’s teams were also pre-qualified. The top four men’s teams from each group of six will progress to the Last 16, while the top two women’s teams from each group of four will proceed to the quarter-finals.

The third tier of the new-look European competition, the EHF European Cup, sees head-to-head knockout matches throughout the competition, with a draw conducted for each round through to the final matches to be played in May 2021. European Cup matches began in October 2020.