The IFF Central Board (CB) held its second meeting of the year in Espoo, Finland on June 11th 2016. The Haitian Floorball Federation (HFF) and the China Floorball Federation (CFF) were approved as a new IFF members during the meeting.
New records have also been set in the number of registered teams for the Women´s WFC 2017 and the Men´s U19 WFC 2017.
Haiti and China new IFF Members
The Haitian Floorball Federation was approved as IFF Member Association number 61 and the China Floorball Federation as the IFF Member 62.
The Haitian Floorball Federation is the 6th IFF Member from the Americas. The headquarter of the association is based in Tabarre and Mr. Vermond Volcima Tuly is the President of the Federation. Visit the IFF Haiti page & HFF Facebook page: www.facebook.com/www.fhfloorball.ht
The China Floorball Federation (CFF) headquarters are based in Shanghai and Harbin. China is the 14th IFF Member from the Asia – Oceania region. The China Floorball Federation will also apply to become a member of the IFF Asia Oceania Floorball Confederation (AOFC). Mr. Zhang Xian You is the President of the Federation. Visit the IFF China page & CFF website: www.hrbfloorball.com
– We have focused on China for over 10 years now and now we finally received the membership application. The IFF will still monitor the memberships to be sure that the different parties in China that are already very active within floorball will be involved in the association´s activities, IFF Secretary General John Liljelund comments.
IFF General Assembly 2016
The 14th IFF The General Assembly (GA) will be held during the WFC 2016 in Riga, Latvia, on the 10th of December at the IFF Official Hotel, starting at 8.30. The invitation for the IFF GA shall be sent out 90 full days prior to the GA, which is on the 9th of September 2016. The member associations are to hand in all proposals, nominations and motions to the IFF GA a 60 full days prior to the IFF GA, which is the 10th of October 2016. The IFF CB shall send out all proposals and materials of the GA 30 full days before the meeting, on the 9th of November 2016.
In connection with the preparations of the IFF Licence System, the IFF CB proposes to the IFF GA, to change the IFF Statutes §13.3, in order to make it possible to include the Tier incentive system for the members and reduce the growing membership fee debt of the non-participating member of the IFF Events. Related to this, the IFF CB proposes to the IFF GA to change the IFF membership fee system, so that the basic membership fee is changed, but at the same time also change the additional fee for the number of players, in order to avoid a too steep increase of the membership fee for the smaller and growing member associations. The proposal will be put forward for the IFF GA 2016.
IFF Licence System 2.0
The basic objectives for the creation of the IFF Licence System 2.0 is to direct the member associations in the right direction, where the focus is to enhance the basic operations of the associations, in order to let the organisation grow and move forward.
The IFF Licence System 2.0 is meant to provide tools for the new and developing Floorball countries to choose the right direction for their operations, in order to improve their operations and organisational governance. The basis for this is to meet the IOC recommendations of the Olympic Agenda 2020 and change our operations in this direction and additionally to reach the objectives of the IOC Road Map, by having a sports product that will provide added value to the multi-sport games and in the end with the opportunity to reach the Olympic Games.
Licence Requirements and Tiers
In order to be able to consider the level of activities country by country, the license requirements shall be
split in three different tiers, which will allow each country to be included in the International Competition
structure.
Tier 1 – The basic requirements to participate in Regional Floorball tournaments and Friendly International matches at country to country level. This would cover tournaments such as Euro Floorball Challenge or APAC/Asian Cup
Tier 2 – The basic requirements to participate in WFCQ, Continental/Regional Multi Sport tournaments (ie Regional Multi Sports Games such as SEA Games)
Tier 3 – The basic requirements to participate in WFC Final round tournaments, U19 WFC or Global Multi-Sport Games
A final Licence System 2.0 proposal will be put forward for the IFF General Assembly 2016.
IFF Referee Committee
The IFF Referee Committee decided in its last meeting to proceed with the project “The IFF way of Refereeing” and the next step will be a working group meeting, which will be held 13th – 14th of August 2016 during the Czech Open, in Prague. All the four EFT countries will send their representatives to the meeting and the working group will agree about the mutual way of how to referee games in international tournaments. The representatives participating in the meeting are either IFF top observers or top referee educators in their own countries.
The aim is to educate all the IFF observers for this new mutually agreed way in the early days of the Men’s WFC 2016 in Riga and they can then spread the knowledge inside their own referee organisation inside the IFF member associations.
IFF Athletes´ Commission
The IFF Athletes Committee meeting held in Copenhagen on May 21st-22nd 2016.
The main topics from the meeting were that the ATC members felt that the information from the technical meetings in the Events are not reaching the players well enough and therefore there is a need to have a short captain’s meeting during the major IFF Events. The IFF Office has already planned to include this captain’s meeting in the schedule of the WFC in Riga.
The ATC also discussed the issues related to anti-doping and irregular betting and based on this it was decided that IFF needs to provide more information to the players about betting and what the danger is. The ATC expressed their interest to participate in the IFF work and wanted to be part of the Athletes Outreach directed to the U19 players. The IFF Office has already planned to focus more on U19 players in regards of anti-doping education.
The ATC further felt that it is important to have an ATC member in the IFF Rules Group and they nominated Mr. Emmanuel Antener for this task. The nomination of Mr. Antener was approved by the IFF RACC and the IFF CB.
IFF Development
Floorball Development coaching and refereeing seminar was organised in Quezon City, the Philippines in May 2016.
The following development seminars are scheduled for the rest of the year:
– India 9.-11.9.2016: Coaching and Refereeing
– Douala, Cameroon 23.-25.9.2016: Coaching and Refereeing
In addition to this, discussions are ongoing to organise a seminar in Turkey in October and some plans are to have a seminar in Australia and Uganda maybe next year.
IFF Anti-Doping & Medical
A basic first analysis of anti-doping education questionnaire answers collected during the WFC 2015 is ready and a first preliminary IFF anti-doping education plan for 2016-2017 has been prepared. The plan is to have a one-day Say NO! to Doping Day at the WFC 2016 and to organise mandatory anti-doping outreach for the new teams entering the WFC 2016 (who did not receive education in 2014). In addition, all other teams are also welcome to book a WFC 2016 IFF anti-doping outreach timeslot.
The future anti-doping education activities will also start focusing more on the U19 players, which is also recommended by the players and WADA.
Ms. Kati Pasanen, the Research and Development Manager at the UKK Institute, Tampere Research Center of Sports Medicine, is preparing the first IFF Events floorball injury report based on the data collected from the IFF CC and Adult WFC Events 2012-2015.
Upcoming IFF Events
World University Floorball Championships 2016
FISU has published the groups and schedule for the 7th World University Floorball Championships 2016 (WUFC 2016), which will be played in Porto, Portugal. Due to the resignation of the Russian men´s team there are nine men´s teams and seven women´s teams attending the WUFC 2016. The WUFC dates 2016 are July 19th – 24th. More information on: http://wucfloorball2016.com & https://www.facebook.com/wucfloorball2016
The following countries have registered:
Men (9):
Group A: Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Czech Republic
Group B: Slovakia, Japan, Korea, Spain, Portugal
Women (7)
Group A: Sweden, Finland, Switzerland
Group B: Czech Republic, Japan, Poland, Spain
Floorball Champions Cup 2016
The 6th IFF Floorball Champions Cup in Borås, Sweden, September 30th – October 2nd 2016. Greåker Men (NOR) and Nauka Women (RUS) won the EuroFloorball Cup 2015 and are qualified to the Champions Cup 2016. In addition, Pixbo Wallenstam, won both the men´s and women´s regular season in Sweden and are qualified to the Champions Cup 2016.
TV4 Sweden will broadcast four Champions Cup 2016 matches.
Visit the official website: www.floorballchampionscup.eu
Official CC social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FloorballChampionsCup
Twitter: https://twitter.com/floorballcc
Instagram: instagram.com/floorballcc
#iffcc2016 #floorball
EuroFloorball Cup 2016 & EuroFloorball Challenge 2016
EuroFloorball Cup 2016 will be played in Weissenfels, Germany organised by the local club the 5th – 9th of October.
The EuroFloorball Challenge 2016 will be played in Budapest and Erd, Hungary from the 24th – 28th of August. The 24th of June 2016 is the last day to register for the event.
Men´s World Floorball Championships 2016
The 11th Men’s WFC is played in Riga, Latvia, December 3rd – 11th 2016. It has been agreed with the local organisers that the match schedule will, when needed, be changed in two stages, in end of August and in October, mainly due to possible TV requests.
The negotiations with the producer of the TV signal, PolarHD, is to be finalised in June. The offer for the signal has gone out to all the participating countries/TV companies. The TV matches are set for Latvian TV and Finnish TV (YLE) and they will show all matches of their teams and the semi-finals and final. Negotiations are ongoing with Czech Republic and Sweden and starting with the other countries.
Visit the official website: iffwfc.org
Official WFC social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/worldfloorballchampionships
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iffwfc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iffwfc
#WFCRiga #floorball
Men´s U19 World Floorball Championships 2017
The 9th Men´s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played in Växjö, Sweden, May 3rd – 7th 2017 with 16 teams playing in two divisions.
A total of 26 teams have registered for the Men´s U19 WFC 2017, which is a new record. The previous record is from Men´s U19 WFC 2015, when 25 teams registered. All A-division teams are directly qualified based on the results from the previous U19 WFC, while in B-division, two teams are directly qualified with the remaining six spots decided by regional quota systems and qualification events.
Visit the official website: wfc2017.se
Official U19 WFC in social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/U19WFC
Twitter: twitter.com/U19WFC
Instagram: instagram.com/u19wfc
#u19wfc #floorball
Men´s U19 WFC 2017 Qualifications
The Europe (EUR) Qualification will be held in Celano, Italy from 6th – 10th September 2016 and the Asia Oceania (AOFC) Qualifciation will be held in Fujiyoshida, Japan from 18th – 20th September 2016.
The match schedules for both the European & Asia-Oceania qualification events for the Men´s U19 WFC 2017 are available and can be found from the IFF event pages: www.floorball.org/pages/EN/U19-WFCQ-2017-EUR & www.floorball.org/pages/EN/U19-WFCQ-2017-AOFC
Wroclaw World Games 2017
Floorball will be on the programme of the 2017 World Games in Wroclaw. The World Games will be held 20th – 30th July in Wroclaw, Poland and floorball has been assigned four competition days for the six teams participating.
The World Games is a Multi-Sport Event which will be organised for the 10th time. The Wroclaw World Games is expected to have more than 3 600 participating athletes, from over 100 countries, competing in 27 official sports and disciplines and floorball is an official medal sport on the programme. The World Games are organised every 4th year by the International World Games Association (IWGA).
Polish Open 2016 – World Games test event
The Men´s Polish Open 2016, September 7th – 11th, will act as the test event for the 2017 World Games tournament. The following six teams will play in the Polish Open: CZE, FIN, GER, NOR, POL and SVK.
Men´s WFC 2016 – Qualification tournament to the World Games
The Men’s World Floorball Championships in Riga, Latvia in December 2016 will act as the
qualifications tournament for the World Games 2017. This means that we will have a lot of very
interesting games during the WFC 2016. The teams will qualify as follows:
– The medalists are directly qualified
– The best ranked neighboring team to Poland will be qualified
– The best ranked non-European team, if ranked among the top 12
– The host country Poland
The World Games has effectively acted as a test-event for sports and disciplines striving to reach
the Olympic Games. Based on the Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendations, the World Games is the pathway to the Olympic Games and the IOC President, Mr. Thomas Bach, has on numerous occasions stressed that the NOC’s need to coordinate the countries participation in the World Games.
– At the moment the World Games is the biggest event any floorball player can take part in, bigger than the IFF World Floorball Championships! The IFF needs the assistance from all its member associations in promoting the Wroclaw World Games in order to make floorball in the World Games 2017 an unforgettable experience. This can give us the entrance to the World Games in Birmingham 2021 with women´s teams included, bring floorball to the Sport Initiation Programme for Tokyo 2020 and give us a real chance to be one of the Additional Event Sports for the Olympic Games 2024 and/or the Youth Olympic Games
For more information on the World Games visit www.theworldgames.org
For more information on the World Games 2017 visit: theworldgames2017.com/en
World Games 2017 social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/TWG2017
Twitter: twitter.com/twg2017
#twg2017 #roadtowroclaw
Women´s World Floorball Championships 2017
The 11th Women´s WFC 2017 will be played in Bratislava, Slovakia with 16 teams playing in four groups. The preliminary dates for the WFC 2017 are December 1st – 9th 2017.
A total of 30 teams have registered for the WFC 2017 which is a new Women´s WFC record. The previous records are from WFC 2011 and 2015, when 24 teams registered. The organisers of the qualifications have been selected. The qualifications will be played in Italy, Spain and New Zealand. The place for the Americas qualification is still to be decided.
Upcoming organisers
The IFF asked for interested organisers for the U19 WFC 2019 and U19 WFC 2020. The interest letter should have been handed in by the 25th of April 2016 but only one interested organiser had handed in their interest by that time. The IFF CB decided to prolong the dead-line and check for further interested organisers until the next CB meeting.
It is also time to ask for organisers of the WFC 2021 and 2022. Concerning the WFC 2022 there is a need to be prepared for alternative dates since the FIFA World Cup is announced to be played in the period 21st of November – 18th of December 2022. The IFF CB decided to give the RACC the task to prepare a number of alternative dates for the Event, in case the FIFA World Cup will actually be played in December 2022 and to start the application process for the WFC 2021 and 2022.
IFF Members
The Singapore Floorball Association (SFA) is under reconstruction governed by SportSG (the National Sports Confederation) and Mr. Todd Vladich, Deputy Director NSA Capability Development has been appointed the interim General Manager of the SFA. Mr. Sani Mohd. Salim is under investigation for miss-management of the SFA administration and suspended from the position of SFA Presidency. The SFA has held an Extra Ordinary General Meeting and elected Mr. Kenneth Ho as the interim president of the SFA.
Mr. Salim has resigned from the IFF RACC and his resignation was confirmed by the IFF CB.
IFF Office
The Finnish Floorball Federation has agreed to host the IFF Office for the period 2017 – 2020 and the Finnish Ministry of Culture and Education has provided the IFF with a Memorandum of Understanding that they are willing to support the SSBL in this matter. The IFF CB decided that the IFF Office will stay in Finland for the period of 2017-2020 and the agreements with the FFF (SSBL) concerning this shall be signed. The CB also proposes to the General Assembly to confirm the IFF Office to stay in Helsinki, Finland.
The minutes from the IFF CB Meeting 2/2016 will be published soon on the IFF website under Organisation and Meetings.
