Award – Andreas Wolff is Handball Player of the Year

A novelty in the election history since 1978: For the first time, two goalkeepers, Katharina Filter and Andreas Wolff, are Germany’s handball players of the year. This was the result of the traditional readers’ choice of the Handball Week for 2025. The two national goalkeepers who recently won World Cup silver (women) and European Championship silver (men) with the German teams follow Xenia Smits and Renars Uscins.

This is Wolff’s third award after 2015 and 2016. The THW Kiel keeper collected 5232 points and relegated his national team colleague Julian Köster (VfL Gummersbach/2520 points) and world handball player Mathias Gidsel (Füchse Berlin/2316 points) to second and third place. “It is a great honor for me and something special to be named Germany’s Handball Player of the Year. Even though it is an individual award, it also speaks for the good work of my teams – both at THW and with the national team,” said Wolff.

Filter (Team Esbjerg) finished with 4104 points, just ahead of DHB captain Antje Döll (Sport-Union Neckarsulm/4080 points) and last year’s winner Smits (Metz Handball/2544 points). “I’m very pleased that I’m receiving so much recognition for what I’m doing and it confirms that I’m on the right track. It shows that it’s worth investing so much and motivates me to keep going,” Filter told Handballwoche.

The election has been carried out by the Handball Week since 1978. The first winner was the later national coach Heiner Brand. Goalkeeper icon Andreas Thiel is a record winner with seven awards.