Sagunto honours women's handball world champions from BM Morvedre
Sagunto City Council honoured BM Morvedre players on 1 September, world under-18 handball champions after beating Montenegro 26-23 in the final on 9 August in Romania.
Two consecutive world titles in the same category do not happen by chance, and that was the central message of the tribute Sagunto City Council paid on Tuesday to the players of Club Balonmano Morvedre (BM Morvedre, the local handball club) who are part of the Spanish women's under-18 team, crowned world champions on 9 August in Romania after beating Montenegro 26-23 in the final. The ceremony, held in the council's plenary hall, brought together national coach Cristina Cabeza with goalkeeper Rebeca Secades, left back Andrea Pérez and pivot Andrea Palomero — the three Sagunto-trained players who were part of the winning squad. The mayor, Darío Moreno, and the councillor for Physical Activity, Health and Sport, Javier Timón, led the recognition, joined by the club's economic vice-president, José Manuel Tomás, and its manager, Alberto Lanza.
Cabeza had already lifted this same title two years earlier, then against Denmark, so the gold won in Romania confirms a run of two consecutive world crowns for the youth team. BM Morvedre, founded on 23 June 2012, now competes in the Liga Guerreras Iberdrola (Spain's top women's handball division), a detail that shows how far a club with just over a decade of history has grown. That two of its players have now lifted two under-18 world titles in a row was, for the council itself, reason enough for an institutional recognition like Tuesday's.
Addressing the other officials, Moreno described Sagunto as "a handball city" and asked businesses and residents to get behind projects like BM Morvedre, invoking corporate social responsibility so local companies understand what they stand to gain by linking their brand to a club of this level. He went further, tying the sporting success to the club's work on values, arguing that talking about equality means letting anyone fully develop in the field they are passionate about, and calling for everyone to help build an environment that, in his words, makes society better.
Timón, for his part, focused his remarks on how hard it is to repeat a world championship, an achievement he said risks being taken for granted once sporting successes pile up. The councillor noted that a world title was precisely what the town's recent record had still been missing, and took the chance to praise the club's youth academy, stressing that the three honoured players were trained at BM Morvedre itself. That is not an isolated compliment: in 2024/25 the club's academy had already landed a double of its own, winning the Spanish under-18 championship and the Spanish Minicopa title in the cadet category, so the world title now rests on a youth system that also competes and wins nationally.
Cabeza returned the gesture by thanking the council for the recognition and saying she hoped to keep celebrating titles at the town hall in years to come. Tomás, representing the club, spoke to the three players, reminding them that they are now the role models they themselves once looked up to when they started playing, and encouraged them to keep developing despite the success already achieved. The honoured players, in turn, thanked the council for the reception; the ceremony was also shared on the council's YouTube channel so residents who could not attend the plenary hall in person could still follow it.
The tribute makes clear that BM Morvedre players' international careers do not come out of nowhere, but from a youth academy that keeps producing titles year after year. For the council, the ceremony was also an opportunity to call for greater involvement from Sagunto's local businesses in funding sports projects of this scale, and to restate its institutional support for women's grassroots sport. According to El Periódico de Aquí and Sagunto City Council, with additional background from Wikipedia on Club Balonmano Morvedre.