A new milestone for floorball was reached today, when the IFF Central Board approved the Burkina Faso Floorball Federation as IFF Member no. 70 .
The IFF Central Board held it s fifthmeeting of the year during the Men’s WFC 2018 in Prague, Czech Republic.
The IFF CB started the meeting by thanking the IFF CB member Mr. Thorbjörn Ovedahl for his commitment as he had resigned from his position as a CB member.
Burkina Faso new IFF member
The Burkina Faso Floorball Federation applied for IFF membership in the beginning of December. Mr. Adama Kuenda is the President of the Federation and Mr. Louis T. Nonguierma is the Secretary General. There are currently 550 floorball players and 12 floorball clubs in Burkina Faso and the women’s national team is the reigning Africa Floorball Cup champion. The 1st Africa Floorball Cup was played in September 2018 in Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire.
– During the last two years the IFF has been able to increase the number of member associations from 61 to 70, which is a substantial achievement and it’s even more positive to know that there are many more to come in the near future. We are extremely happy to see that the increased number of member associations are coming from all continents and at the time especially from Africa, after the first Africa Floorball Cup, says Mr. Tomas Eriksson, the IFF President.
The Federation is now working towards receiving recognition from both the Sports Council and the National Olympic Committee. The IFF CB approved the Burkina Faso Floorball Federation as the provisional member of IFF.
IFF General Assembly
The 15th IFF the General Assembly will be held during the WFC 2018 in Prague, Czech Republic on the 8th of December at the IFF Official Hotel Clarion Congress Hotel , starting at 08.30. A total of 51 countries have registered for the IFF General Assembly, with 38 ordinary members and 13 provisional members.
Upcoming IFF Events
Men’s WFC 2018
The Men’s World Floorball Championships are organised in Prague, Czech Republic, December 1st – 9th 2018. During the opening day of the championships, the organiser made a new record for a single group game 12 362 spectators and the best ever WFC daily attendance with 31 073 spectators.
Follow the Men’s WFC 2018 on the official website here.
Champions Cup 2019
The Champions Cup 2019 – Final Four will be played in Gävle, Sweden, January 3rd-4th. This is the first time that the IFF Champions Cup will be played in its new format. The champions from the top four floorball countries: Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland will participate. On Thursday (3rd of January) the teams will play semi-finals and the medal matches will be played on Friday. The tournament is played in connection with the Swedish Association Youth Tournament.
Visit the Champions Cup website here.
Men’s U19 WFC 2019
The Men’s U19 World Floorball Championships 2019 are played in Halifax, Canada, May 8th – 12th. This will be the first time that the Men’s U19 WFC has been held outside of Europe. There will be altogether 16 teams participating to the final round in Halifax, Canada.
Visit the Men’s U19 WFC website here.
Women’s WFC 2019
The 12th Women’s World Floorball Championships will be played December 7th – 15th 2019 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The host country will receive automatic qualification, while all other 29 countries must compete for the remaining 15 places. For Belgium and Philippines this will be their first ever WFC qualification event. The Final Round will be held with 16 teams, divided into 4 groups according to their ranking and ballot draw.
Visit the WFC 2019 website here.
Other Events
The preparations of the IMGA European Master Games in Turin, Italy next year are ongoing and the registration has started. The age categories in floorball are ranging from 35+ to 50+ in the men’s category and in the women’s category the age groups are 30+, 35+ and 40+. Floorball will be played in four different venues, between 31st of July and 3rd of August. Read more here.
Floorball has also been included on the 30th South-East Asian Games to be organised in November-December 2019. The floorball tournament is planned to be played from the 27th to 30th of November 2019. Read more here.
The FISU has informed that the Floorball WUC 2020 will be played from the 4th to 8th of August 2020, in Koper, Slovenia.
IFF Committees
Rules and Competition Committee (RACC)
The CB decided to propose to the IFF General Assembly to accept the creation of the Euro Floorball Championships and the IFF Central Board will start to work for detailed solution how the Euro Floorball Championships concept will be built.
The IFF CB decided to update the IFF competition regulations based on the proposal by the IFF RACC on changing the handling of team lists where teams would submit one team list 30 days prior to the event, instead of a first list and a final list.
The video based goal review system will be used in the upcoming men’s WFC 2018 in Prague. The referees can review the situation if the ball was in the goal or not and the teams are entitled to have one challenge during the regular game time, one challenge during the extra time and one challenge during the penalty shootout.
Referee Committee (RC)
IFF RC organised a seminar for all the international observers in conjunction of the Men’s WFC in Prague from the 1st to 2nd of December. There were 23 observers out of 24 present. The main topics were the IFF Way of Refereeing Playbook and the 2018 edition of the Game Rules.
Development
A short development seminar was organised in Dublin in Ireland. There were 30 coaches from Special Olympics Ireland and the approach was mainly the introduction to officiate floorball and the introduction of coaching floorball.
