The EHF Court of Appeal has upheld the sanctions against North Macedonian referee pair Gjorgji Nachevski and Slave Nikolov following the case involving manipulated fitness test videos ahead of the Men’s EHF EURO 2026.
The European Handball Federation withdrew the referees’ nomination for the upcoming European Championship after suspicions emerged regarding manipulated video recordings from the so-called “Multistage Fitness Test”.
Following an expert analysis carried out by EHF integrity partner Sportradar, the EHF Court of Handball concluded that the uploaded material had been manipulated. That decision has now been confirmed by the EHF Court of Appeal.
As a result, both referees have been suspended from carrying out any function within the EHF and from participating in any EHF activities for a period of two years from the date of the original ruling. The suspension is based on severely unsportsmanlike conduct.
In addition, both Nachevski and Nikolov have each been fined €5,000 for serious violations of the EHF Code of Conduct.
The decision can still be appealed to the European Handball Court of Arbitration (ECA) within 21 days.
Read more: EHF suspends referees Nachevski and Nikolov for two years