The ballot to decide the groups for the IFF Women´s World Floorball Championships 2017 will be held in Bratislava, Slovakia on International Women´s Day – 8th March.

The draw will be held at the official IFF hotel, DoubleTree Hilton Bratislava at 15:00. National Associations, and the general public, are invited to attend. 

The qualified teams will be divided into 4 pots according to ranking:

*Numbers in brackets show current rankings according to results from the past two WFC events. 

The groups will be determined by an ordered selection from the pots, and will be made up as follows:

Group Ballot Live Stream

Playing System

The 16 teams will be divided to 4 groups. In the group stage each team plays each other once, while the second stage of the event includes play-offs and placement matches. The two best teams of group A and B go directly to the quarter-final. Teams placed 3rd and 4th in group A and B and the teams placed 1st and 2nd in group C and D make it to the first playoff round (played before the quarter-finals).

Final Round (1st – 9th December 2017)

Slovakia will for the first time host an adult World Championship final round event. They are experienced IFF event organisers, having hosted the Women´s U19 WFC, WFC Qualifications for both men & women, and several EuroFloorball Cup events.

All 16 teams will play in Bratislava in two arenas – Arena O. Nepela & Hant Arena, which are located 500m from each other in central Bratislava. The main arena, renovated in 2011, can seat 10,000 spectators and is used mainly for ice hockey and concerts.

Qualifications

A total of 31* teams registered for the 11th Women´s World Floorball Championships 2017 – a new record. Two countries made their debut at this level – Thailand & China. For China this was their first-ever international appearance for their women´s team, while Thailand was hoping to follow up from their strong international start at the 2015 SEA Games, where they finished second to Singapore. Malaysia, Slovenia, Austria & Korea all returned after a break of several years from competing at this level. 

*Due to visa issues, Iran registered but did not compete

In Europe, there were four qualification groups with two event locations – EUR 1 & EUR 4 will play in Madrid, Spain, while EUR 2 & EUR 3 will be hosted by Celano, Italy. The Asia-Oceania qualifiers returned to Wellington, New Zealand which successfully hosted the Men´s AOFC qualifications in 2014. The Americas qualification was played in Markham (ON), Canada.

All teams, apart from the host country (Slovakia), had to qualify for the Final Round via the qualifications. After being exempt from the qualifications in 2015 due to their hosting of the final event, this was the first time that the Finnish women´s team had ever participated in a qualification round for WFC.

The qualification groups were composed according to ranking as follows:

	EUR1		EUR4		AMERICAS
	1-5.02.2017 Madrid, Spain		1-5.02.2017 Madrid, Spain		3-4.02.2017 Markham ON, Canada
	Sweden (1)*		Czech Republic (4)		Canada (16)
	Norway (8)		Latvia (5)		USA (17)
	Denmark (10)		Hungary (15)
	Slovenia (24)		Spain (19)
	France (25)		Ukraine (-)

	EUR2		EUR3		AOFC
	1-5.02.2017 Celano, Italy		1-5.02.2017 Celano, Italy		31.01-5.02.2017 Wellington, New Zealand
	Finland (2)		Switzerland (3)		Australia (12)
	Poland (7)		Germany (6)		Japan (13)
	Russia (11)		Netherlands (14)		Singapore (18)
	Italy (22)		Estonia (20)		Korea (21)
	Great Britain (26)		Austria (27)		New Zealand (23)
					Malaysia (30)
					Thailand (-)
					China (-)

*Numbers in brackets show the current ranking based on the results from the last two WFC events. Countries with no ranking are participating in their first WFC and will receive a ranking after the event.