A total of 49 IFF Member Associations attended the 15th IFF General Assembly (GA) on December 8th in Prague, Czech Republic in connection with the World Floorball Championships. During the GA 2018 there were decision made of testing new game formats and also the proposal to start the process of launching a new competition format, the Euro Floorball Championships (EF), was approved.

The IFF President, Mr. Tomas Eriksson, held the opening speech:

– The requisite for further growth of floorball requires a more in-depth cooperation and coordination of the objectives and strategies. It is imperative for the movement to find a common view on how to move forward with the Future of Floorball, when it comes to the game format and the direction where to go.

Changing the Structure of Future Floorball Events

Due to the quick development and growth of floorball the present system with just a WFC Final round played with 16 teams was introduced for the Women’s WFC 2013 and the playing format has been used since. The discussion of the format for the major IFF Events has however continued, and after the successful introduction of floorball in the International multi-sport event – The World Games 2017, the discussion about changing the format also for the IFF Events became more intense. At the IFF Associations Meeting in Bratislava 2017, the member associations were in favour of changing the IFF World Championships format, but afterwards there have also been reactions against any rapid changes.

The IFF General Assembly decided that the IFF shall execute a set of initial tests for the new playing system during the seasons 2019 – 2020 and 2020 – 2021 in IFF Events and in other (by the members selected) International Events during the season 2019 and/or 2020 – 2021. After this, the floorball community shall evaluate the overall effect of the changes on both a national and international level. The Member Associations can then make the final decision whether to change the future of floorball or not at the IFF General Assembly 2022.

The test events shall be played with national teams consisting of a maximum of 22 persons in the team delegation, 17 players and 5 team officials. The playing time is 3 x 15 minutes effective time, with 10 minutes intermissions.

–  The main reason for the proposed change is to find a common view on how to develop the sport and answer to the changing requirements of the Sports Industry. We need to be able to follow the global sport trends and if needed, proactively make our sport accessible and more interesting for the larger sport audience and the market. The recent discussion has clearly shown that we first need to carefully test new structures before introducing them, in order to reach our ultimate goals and the set missions and visions, but at the same time show that our sport is flexible and adaptable, IFF Secretary General, Mr. John Liljelund, comments.

Euro Floorball Championships (EF)

The IFF General Assembly approved the IFF Central Board’s recommendation to start the process of launching a new competition format, the Euro Floorball Championships (EF). The original EF proposal was received by the IFF CB from the Euro Floorball Tour (EFT) countries (Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland). The General Assembly gave the IFF CB the task to finalise how the EF will be played.

The objective with launching the EF is to have an additional title to fight for. The expectations are that the Euro Floorball Championships will receive a much higher status than the present EuroFloorball Tour and therefore help the national associations in their work to promote the sport through the championships. The new format can also act as an entry point for countries presently ranked 5-12th to start organising Major IFF Events.

– The proposal is that the top seven nations from the previous WFC and the host nation will be qualified for the EF, which will be played during the WFC qualification and international weekend in January-February, meaning that these countries are directly qualified for the next WFC, if they participate in the EF, John Liljelund informs.

Modifications of the IFF Statutes

The IFF GA decided to make changes to the IFF Statutes in relation to the Continental Confederations and the streamlining of the IFF Operations.

The IFF GA also decided that the IFF President and the members of the Central Board can only be elected for a total of three consecutive terms of four years, starting from the elections at the IFF General Assembly 2024.

The modified statutes will be published soon on the IFF website.

New Ordinary Members

The IFF provisional member Cote d’Ivoire was accepted as ordinary member by the IFF General Assembly. The IFF Central Board has also yesterday approved Burkina Faso, which recently won the Women’s Africa Cup as provisional member no. 70.

The IFF now has a total of 45 ordinary members and 25 provisional members.

IFF has today signed the continued sponsorship agreements with rink provider Swerink and floor provider Gerflor. The IFF will tomorrow publish the continued deal with UNIHOC.

IFF Plan of Action 2019-2020

The IFF President Mr. Tomas Eriksson, presented the IFF Plan of Action for the next two years:

– During the next two years the IFF administration will through the implementation of the IFF Licence System more actively support the provisional member associations to develop their operations, in order to have more ordinary members participating in the IFF events in the future. In addition to this we will start the process for laying the IFF Strategy for the period 2021 – 2032, based on the evaluation of the present strategy. We will also work closely with the members to define the events where to test the game format for the Future of Floorball.

General Assembly Elections

The following committee members and auditor were elected by the IFF GA for the upcoming two year period

Ethics Commission
Chairman:
Mr. Olli Rauste, Finland (new)
Member:
Ms. Wendy Kuan, Singapore (new)

Auditor
Mr. Brandstam, Sweden (re-election)

Legal seat of the IFF

The IFF General Assembly decided to approve the resolution defining that the legal seat of the IFF will be in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Presentations of the upcoming IFF Events

Men’s U19 World Floorball Championships 2019 in Halifax, Canada
The Men’s U19 WFC will be played 8th – 12th May 2019. This will be the first time that the Men’s U19 WFC has been held outside of Europe. Visit website here.

IMGA European Master Games 2019 in Torino, Italy
The European Masters Games (EMG) is an international multi-sport event that takes place every four years. This year the event takes place in Torino, Italy, between 26th of July and 4th of August. 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. Visit website here.

Women’s World Floorball Championships 2019 in Neuchatel, Switzerland
The Women’s WFC will take place 7th – 15th of December 2019. Visit WFC 2019 website here.

Women’s U19 World Floorball Championships 2020 in Uppsala, Sweden
The Women’s U19 2020 is played 6th – 10th of May in the IFU Arena.

Men’s World Floorball Championships 2020 in Helsinki, Finland
The Men’s WFC 2020 is played 4th – 12th of December.