The IFF Referee Committee has nominated seven referee pairs from five different IFF member Association for the Men’s WFC 2018. Only two out of seven pairs are newcomers on this level, all the others have experience of several Men’s WFCs.
This is the first time that a female referee pair, Corina Wehinger and Sandra Zurbuchen, will referee in a Men’s World Floorball Championship.
Here are the WFC 2018 referees:
Kamil Sojka (CZE)
Kamil Sojka is 38 years old and works as a dispatcher in logistics. He also lives in Havirov and he is married and has twin daughters. He has been a referee for 16 years and the last ten years he has been refereeing with Tomas Sojka and they are cousins.
Tomas Sojka (CZE)
Tomas Sojka, 39, works as the Head of implementation and operation department in an IT-Company in Ostrava. He has also married and has two kids.
Mikko Alakare (FIN)
42 years old attorney at law has a long experience as a referee. He started his career in the national level already in 1993 and his international career in 2000. His first big challenge as an IFF referee was the 2004 Men’s WFC final with his former pair and they also refereed the World Games final in summer 2017.
Vesa Vilkki (FIN)
38 years old product manager from Helsinki. He started his career as a national league referee in 2002 and his international career in 2006. He is an experienced referee with several international games together with his pair for 10 years.
Henri Heinola
34 year old engineer from Helsinki, Finland. He has been a referee for over a decade and started his international career in the beginning of 2013, but they had their first international experience already back in 2010 in the EFC qualifications in Norway.
Manu Marttinen
38 years old engineer. He works for the road constructions in Finland. He has almost 15 years’ experience of refereeing and also several years in the highest Finnish league. He has also refereed the Finnish Superfinal.
Martins Gross (LAT)
Started his referee career 13 years ago in Latvia and his present occupation is referee. He started his international career in 2007 with his present partner. He lives in Liepaja, a coastal region by the Baltic Sea.
Martins Larinovs (LAT)
33 years old and he has been a referee for more than decade and an IFF referee since 2007. He lives in Rubene and is a very eager cook and one of his favourite hobby is to pick mushrooms. He and his pair have refereed more than 150 international games so far and they also refereed the Men’s WFC 2016 Final in Riga.
Glenn Boström (SWE)
43 years of age, but turns 44 during the WFC and works as an IT-consultant. He is married and has two kids. He also has a player background and actually he has won the Swedish U19 championship with his team way back in 1992.
Håkan Söderman (SWE)
Håkan Söderman is one of the most experienced referees on the international level. He is 50 years old and is the second oldest international floorball referee, works as a Floorball consultant. He has been in several international tournaments with his pair.
Thomas Andersson
41 years old and works as a manager in Ericsson. He has been an IFF referee also before with a different pair. He has been a referee since 1996
Rickard Wissman
38 years old military man that has been a referee since 1996. He has a family and when not refereeing he enjoys to cook and train. He also has player background from the Swedish second division.
Corina Wehinger
32 years old MSC in sports science. She lives in Berne and has been a referee for nine years and together with her pair the whole time. They referee the Men’s league in Switzerland and refereed the Superfinal in spring 2018.
Sandra Zurbuchen
34 years old lawyer and comes from the city of Berne. She is an eager sports fan in general and has many other sports as hobby than just floorball. She has also refereed in the MU19 WFC 2017 in Växjö in Sweden with her pair.
More WFC 2018 news on the official WFC 2018 website.
