Both the International Handball Federation and the European Federation have already regulated the use of electronic buttons to manage team timeouts. This system facilitates immediacy and interconnectivity.
In handball matches, team timeouts are often used during matches as a strategic interruption of playing time. Traditionally, these team timeouts are requested using a green card that the coach places on the control table in front of the timekeeper and can only be requested if your team is in possession of the ball. These timeouts are awarded immediately on the condition that the team does not lose the ball before the timekeeper has had time to blow the whistle. Immediately afterwards, the referees confirm this timeout, the timekeeper starts checking its duration on a separate clock and, after 50 seconds, gives an acoustic signal indicating that the game must be resumed within 10 seconds. A total of three time-outs can be requested during each match, but the timing of their request is also regulated and is punishable if done incorrectly.
This is the traditional system, but handball is not, far from it, a sport that is foreign to technological advances. Electronic team time-out buttons have come to replace green cards and are a relatively recent innovation, but they are expected to become established at all levels. Their advantages over traditional cards are many: they are pressed directly by the coach - relieving the officials from having to be aware of the very moment in which a time-out is requested - and they are synchronized with loudspeakers and light signals. With the buttons, the process of requesting a team time-out is more agile (the need for human intervention by the table and the referees is eliminated) and technological, since these devices can be synchronized with the rest of the pavilion's electronics. They are also more precise, and delays or misunderstandings are avoided.
These buttons are usually positioned at hip height on a column-shaped structure, and each team has one on each side of the table. When a coach presses them, the scoreboard time stops immediately, a horn sounds to start the team timeout (the countdown starts at the same time), and 10 seconds before the minute is up, the horn sounds again, which is heard once again at the end of the minute of time. The system is synchronized with the match times, but its possibilities go well beyond that: for example, the countdown could also be followed by the video scoreboards in the pavilion.
The possibility of using these electronic buttons instead of green cards is a matter already regulated by both the International Handball Federation (IHF) and the European Handball Federation (EHF). The first time this system was used in a high-level tournament was in 2018, during the EHF Women's Final Four held that year in Budapest. Since then, it has been used in many elite competitions and its level of implementation confirms that it is here to stay: at the EHF Competitions Commission meeting held last March, it was stated that 95% of the men's and women's teams participating in the Champions League and Europa League already use the button. "The 23/24 season was the first in which it was implemented and was considered a test so that all the clubs involved could use it. From the 24/25 season, sanctions will be imposed in case of non-use", the note reads. In Spain, the first appearance of this system in an official competition took place in June 2022, during the celebration of the 32nd Sacyr Asobal Cup in the Príncipe Felipe Pavilion in Zaragoza. Since then, this technology continues to be implemented in more and more pavilions and will soon become part of the daily life of every handball match.