“The signed contract with Exel is historical and very important since we now have a major partner as an official Floorball equipment provider, including sticks, balls, rinks, goals and goalie equipment. It also gives us the possibility to start developing our sport and events even further”, Mr. Per Jansson, IFF Marketing Function Chairman, says.The International Floorball Federation, IFF, and the world’s leading Floorball equipment manufacturer Exel have singed a partnership agreement for the years 2006 – 2010 in order to develop Floorball worldwide.

The International Floorball Federation is a very rapidly growing sports federation, with a total of 37 member federations on four continents. Floorball has a total of 300,000 licensed players and a total of 1.8 million recreational players in the world. Floorball has become the alternative team sport for both men and women in a number of countries, due to the easiness to start playing, the speed of the game and that the sport is inexpensive compared to other sports.

“Exel Sports is proud to become a long-term partner with IFF to help Floorball, a great team sport to develop globally and strengthen its position among youth team sports in the countries where it has already been played for years”, Mr. Mika Sulin, Managing Director of Exel Sports, says. “The objective of the co-operation is to continue to spread the Sport of Floorball, where the interests of Exel and IFF match, since both are striving to enlarge the number of Floorball playing countries in the world. The key focus areas for the spreading of Floorball are North America, China and Central Europe.”

“IFF has revised its marketing strategy in 2005, where the objective was set to build a new environment where we are capable to differentiate between different partners also outside the Floorball world. This agreement with Exel Sports makes it possible for IFF to build a solid foundation for the IFF Events, like the WFC 2006 in Sweden, where all the championships will have the same look and feel when it comes to Floorball equipment, flooring and apparel”, Mr. John Liljelund, IFF General Secretary, says.

“Exel has during the past years proven to be true partner in bringing Floorball equipment forward, with presenting the first present type of Floorball sticks and introducing the second generation of balls in Floorball. This co-operation will take Floorball a number of steps forward in our aim to grow the sport”, Mr. Liljelund adds.

New colour ball for the World Championships

Exel has launched a new Precision WFC-Vanilla ball, for the World Championships, with the final in the Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden on 28th of May 2006. The new colour, WFC-Vanilla, stands out in the best possible way from the WFC playing court surface “Gerflor-Taraflex”. The Precision ball is crafted using the latest technology and know-how from aerodynamics. Its unique characteristics ensure a faster and safer play in all situations and on all types of court surface. This can be felt especially on rubber floors and other frictional court surfaces. The new Precision WFC-Vanilla ball is the official World Championships ball 2006-2010.

Exel players the majority in Finland’s and Sweden’s WFC-team

Altogether eight of the Finnish players and seven of the Swedish team’s players are Exel players. The players of all times, the most entertaining and impressive player Janne Tähkä, will be the commentator for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE and his Swedish rival Martin Olofsson, who has won an impressive four World Championships, and is also 3 times MVP and All Star player in WFC, will be seen on the court for the last time as he has announced his retirement after this tournament.

For more information please contact:
Mr. John Liljelund, IFF General Secretary, tel. +358 400 529 030