The third IFF Central Board (CB) Meeting of the year was held in Prague, Czech Republic on Saturday the 3rd and on Sunday the 4th of September.

On Saturday the IFF Central Board had a workshop day where the CB is planning upcoming and present projects. The CB mainly concentrated on the upcoming World Games 2017 and issues like how to promote the World Games inside the Floorball community in order to stress the importance of the World Games and what it actually means for Floorball.

The World Games 2017 in Wroclaw in Poland will be played in the end of July 2017 and that is the first global multi sports event where Floorball is participating.

– We could say that the upcoming World Games will be like our “Olympic” games and very important step for Floorball on the Olympic path, says IFF President Mr. Tomas Eriksson.

Another topic on Saturday was the Each One-Teach One Project and mainly discussions and planning how to acivate the IFF member associations with the Project.

The actual meeting was held on Sunday with following topics.

Possible Member Associations in the future
At the moment, there are a number of nations which have taken steps and asking questions of how to become IFF members. These countries are probably ready to hand in their membership application in the next 6 to 12 months. The countries are Burkina Faso, Colombia, Kenya, Somalia and Venezuela. In addition to these, the IFF has Croatia, Hong Kong, Luxemburg and Taiwan, who are in the stage to start the process.

Future development operations
The following IFF development seminars on Coaching and Refereeing are scheduled for the rest of the year:
India 9.-11.09.
Douala, Cameroon 23.-25.9.
Antalya, Turkey 15.-17.10.

In addition to this discussions are ongoing to organise a seminar in Australia and Uganda maybe next year.

Injury Reporting
The IFF Injury form has  been updated with minor changes and is available on the IFF website under Materials. The first draft of the IFF Events injury studies research paper has been provided by the researcher Kati Pasanen for a feedback round, by Ms. Bruun and the IFF Medical Committee Chair Mr. Frey. Ms. Pasanen intends to send the abstract of the research to the IOC World Conference 16-18 March 2017, Monaco.

“IFF Way” of refereeing program
The IFF RC decided in the end of year 2015 to start an “IFF Way”  of refereeing program, in order to define the international standards for officiating in IFF events and international games. The IFF CB has also approved the program in its meeting earlier this year.

The first meeting concerning the program was held in Prague from the 13th to 14th of August with participants from Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. The meeting was very fruitful and all the participants agreed upon the need for the program. It was mutually agreed that an IFF basic level referee “play book” will be introduced to the IFF RC in its next meeting in October and then taken to the IFF CB for approval.

Based on the guidelines of the Play Book the IFF will organize an educational meeting for all IFF referee observers during the first weekend of WFC 2016 in Riga in Latvia. In that meeting the purpose is to more widely to agree upon the interpretations of the Rules of the game and then in co-operation with the IFF RACC to make those valid.

Upcoming IFF Events

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.

Official CC social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/FloorballChampionsCup
Twitter: https://twitter.com/floorballcc
Instagram: instagram.com/floorballcc
#iffcc2016 #floorball

EuroFloorball Cup

The first edition of the EuroFloorball Challenge was played 25-28.08.2016 in Budapest, Hungary with 4 teams in both the Men’s and the Women’s Challenge tournamet. The winners and qualified teams for the EuroFloorball Cup 2017 were Phoenix Fireball (HUN) for Men and CDE El Valle (ESP) for Women.

The EuroFloorball Cup 2016 will be played in Weissenfels, Germany 5-9.10.2016 with 6 teams in both the Men’s and the Women’s Cup.

More information: www.floorball.org/pages/EN/EFC-2016

Men´s World Floorball Championships 2016

The LOC has started the individual sales of tickets, in order to insure that all capable persons will buy their tickets. The sales of sponsorship is also continuing and some sponsorship deals have been made. The next preparatory meeting will be held in September, in order to be able to secure that the preparations are in order.

The 11th Men’s WFC is played in Riga, Latvia, December 3rd – 11th 2016.
Official WFC social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/worldfloorballchampionships
Twitter: https://twitter.com/iffwfc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iffwfc
#WFCRiga #floorball

Women´s World Floorball Championships 2017

China has applied to register late to participate in the WFC2017, which would give a total of 31 registered teams and that the playing mode for the AOFC qualification, if the registration is confirmed by the CB, will be changed accordingly. The organiser of the WFCQ in New Zealand has agreed to have eight teams in the tournament. 31 teams is a new Women´s WFC record.

The Americas qualification will be played in Markham (ON), Canada.

The final round of 2017 Women´s WFC will be played in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Men´s U19 World Floorball Championships 2017 Växjö, Sweden

The preparations for the U19 WFC 2017 final round is going on in accordance to plans and a preliminary schedule is worked out with the organiser and it will be finalized after the qualifications.

The qualifications will be played in Italy 6th-10th September with 10 teams and Japan 18th-20th September, with 4 teams.

Visit the official website: wfc2017.se
Official U19 WFC in social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/U19WFC
Twitter: www.twitter.com/U19WFC
Instagram: www.instagram.com/u19wfc
#u19wfc #floorball

Upcoming organisers – U19 WFC 2019 and 2020 and WFC 2021 and 2022 organisers
The IFF has asked for interested organisers of the U19 WFC 2019 and 2020. The possible organisers have until 26th of August 2016 to send their letter of interest. Slovakia has reconfirmed their interest for the organization of U19WFC 2019 and there is an initial interest shown from Canada to host the Men’s U19 WFC 2019 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The IFF has started to ask for organisers for the WFC 2021 and 2022. The reason for starting the process with these events already now is due to the expected date collision for WFC 2022 with the FIFA World Cup 2022 (announced to be played in the period 21st of November – 18th of December 2022) and the need for IFF to be prepared for alternative dates.

The minutes from the IFF CB Meeting 3/2016 will be published soon on the IFF website under Organisation and Meetings.