Tchoukball is a fast-moving indoor team sport that borrows ideas from handball and squash. Instead of a goal, players throw the ball at an angled rebound frame and try to make it land on the floor before the opposing team can catch it. The sport was devised in Switzerland in the 1970s and is run internationally by the Fédération Internationale de Tchoukball (FITB), based in Geneva.
Objective
Each team tries to score by throwing the ball onto one of two rebound frames positioned at either end of the court, so that it bounces back and touches the floor inside the court but outside a protected semicircle in front of the frame, before the defending team can catch it.
Rules and regulations
- Tchoukball deliberately removes physical confrontation from the game.
- Players cannot block a throw, tackle an opponent or snatch the ball from someone’s hands, which is why it is often played by mixed-ability and mixed-age teams.
- A player holding the ball may take a maximum of three steps and must release it within three seconds.
- A team must complete at least three passes before attempting a shot at the frame, and after three consecutive shots at the same frame, possession must switch to the opposite end of the court.
- Once a shot is taken, it counts as a point only if the rebounding ball lands inside the court and outside the forbidden zone; if the defending side catches it cleanly, they gain possession and attack the other way.
- Sides of seven players take the court at any one time, with rolling substitutions allowed.
Equipment and playing area
- A tchoukball court is typically 27 metres long and 16 metres wide, roughly the size of a handball court, with a semicircular forbidden zone of three metres radius marked in front of each frame.
- The frame itself is a one-square-metre stringed net, angled so a thrown ball rebounds forward rather than straight back.
- The ball’s size and weight vary slightly by age and gender category, with a circumference of roughly 54 to 60 centimetres.
Scoring
- A point is awarded to the attacking team whenever their shot rebounds off the frame and lands within the court but outside the forbidden zone, and the defence fails to catch it before it hits the ground.
- Matches are generally split into periods, and the side with more points when time runs out wins.
