World University Floorball Championships

The 2016 World University Floorball Championships (WUC) are held this week in Porto, Portugal.

What is WUC?
The World University Floorball Championships is a national team tournament. The players in the team have to be students who are currently officially registered as proceeding towards a degree or diploma at the university or similar institute whose status is recognized by the appropriate national academic authority of their country, or former students who have obtained their academic degree or diploma in the year prior to the WUC. The players also must be at least 17 and less than 28 years of age on January 1st of the year the WUC is held. And of course must have full citizenship and passport of the country they represent

Floorball in the World University Championships
Floorball has been a part of the World University Championships since 2002 making this the 7th WUC since the event is not held annually. In 2002 eight teams took part in the tournament, including Finland who were the first champions. At the start there was only the Men’s category but in 2008 Women joined the competition. Four teams took part in the first Women’s WUC and Sweden was triumphant. Since then many countries have participated in the WUC but only Finland, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland have participated in every WUC.

Sweden after winning the title in 2010

World University Champions (FISU)
2014 Men: Sweden / Women: Sweden (played in Singapore)
2012 Men: Czech Republic / Women: Sweden (played in Czech Republic)
2010 Men & Women: Sweden (played in Sweden)
2008 Men: Finland / Women: Sweden (played in Finland)
2006 Men: Sweden (played in Switzerland)
2002 Men: Finland (played in Sweden)

The 2016 WUC is played 19th – 24th of July
The 2016 World University Championships are organised by FISU (International University Sports Federation) in conjunction with FADU (Portugal University Sports), Universidade do Porto, the Federação Académica do Porto, and the IFF. This year 16 countries take part in the tournament. Nine in the Men’s and seven in the Women’s. Not only are Portugal hosts for the event but this will be the first ever international floorball event that they have participated in. For Spain, it will be their first World University Championships.

Men´s Tournament