The IFF floorball family continues to grow when the IFF Central Board (CB) approved the Central Africa Floorball Federation as IFF member no. 71 and the Kiribati Floorball National Federation as member no. 72.
The IFF Central Board held it second meeting of the year in Malaga, Spain, on the 10th of March 2019. On Saturday the CB had a working session mainly concentrating on the process of evaluating the IFF Strategy 2009-2020 and to define what the IFF has accomplished during the last decade. The next step will be to create a new strategy for the years 2020 to 2032. The IFF CB also decided about the IFF’s official standpoint in relation to top floorball leagues organised outside the national member associations.
Central African Republic and Kiribati new IFF members
The Central Africa Floorball Federation (FCAF) applied for IFF membership in January 2019 and the Kiribati Floorball National Federation (KFBNF) in February 2019.
Mr. Issene Oumar is the President of the Central Africa Floorball Federation and Mr. Prince Namsona is the Secretary General. There are currently 320 floorball players and 10 floorball clubs in the Central African Republic. The Central African Federation of Floorball aims to promote and develop the game in the eight districts of Bangui and including Bégoua and Bimbo as well as in the provinces. The goal is also to organise national floorball championships and by 2020 to have a national team.
Mr. M’aneta Tekautu is the President of the Kiribati Floorball National Federation and Ms. Agnes Tiaon is the Secretary General. There are currently 160 floorball players and five floorball clubs in Kiribati. The Kiribati Floorball National Federation aims to promote floorball by spreading the game to the outer islands and form floorball clubs. The goal is also to organise island tournaments and annual national championships. In addition, one major goal is to include floorball as a sport in the Kiribati National Tournament organised every two years and funded by the Kiribati Government.
The IFF CB approved the Central Africa Floorball Federation (FCAF) as IFF provisional member no. 71 and the Kiribati Floorball National Federation (KFBNF) as IFF provisional member no. 72.
IFF’s standpoint to top leagues outside of IFF member associations
The IFF CB discussed and finalised the IFF standpoint in relation to top level leagues or commercial top leagues outside the national member associations: The IFF and its member associations can only interact and cooperate with the national leagues and series organised and ran by the IFF member associations.
Testing system for the Future of Floorball
The CB discussed the process of how to proceed with the preparations on how to build the testing system for the Future of Floorball. The office prepared a proposal for the process, which the CB agreed to follow. The CB decided to give the IFF Rules and Competition Committee (RACC) the task to prepare a circular letter which is to be sent out to the IFF members. The IFF will ask its member associations to send in proposals of what to test, how the test shall be conducted and the evaluation process. This letter shall be sent out no later than in end of March 2019 and the member associations are to revert back with their application in May. The RACC then needs to make a proposal to the IFF CB on what to test and in which events in 2019 – 2020.
IFF Events
Men’s WFC 2018
The final report from the WFC 2018 organisers show that the WFC broke several records, like the total number of spectators and the number of spectators in the final. The feedback from all stakeholders was also mainly positive and the preliminary information is that also the financial result of the WFC 2018 was positive.
Men’s U19 WFC 2019
The 9th 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 WFC groups were decided in the ballot held on February 15th and now the ticket sales has started.
Visit the WFC 2019 website here.
Champions Cup 2020
The Champions Cup 2020 – Final Four will be played in Czech Republic, the 11th to 12th of January 2020. The Champions Cup will be played with the current “final four” format until 2022 and the IFF CB has already started the process of evaluating the format and to possibly create a new format for the Champions Cup in the future.
Men’s WFC 2020
The 13th Men’s World Floorball Championships will be played 4th – 12th of December 2020 in Helsinki, Finland. A total of 35 IFF member associations have registered to the Men’s WFC 2020, which is a new record.
Due to the World Games 2021 in Birmingham the IFF CB also decided to give both Americas teams (USA and Canada) direct qualification to the WFC 2020. It was also decided that nine teams shall qualify from the European qualifications (in addition to Finland directly qualified as the organiser). The AOFC shall retain their four qualifying spots.
Women’s U19 WFC 2020
The 9th Women’s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played 6th – 10th of May 2020 in Uppsala, Sweden. A total of 19 IFF member associations registered to the Women’s U19 2020 and this is also a new record.
Other Events
The preparations of the IMGA European Master Games in Turin, Italy in July this year are ongoing. 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.
Referee Committee (RC)
The IFF CB decided that referees Mr. Markus Dobernig and Mr. Jurgen Filipic from Austria shall be promoted to the IFF ordinary referee group. It was also decided that Mr. Michal Gorski and Mr. Arkadiusz Kalwasinski from Poland and Mr. Philipp Khruschev and Mr. Pavel Vinogradov from Russia will be nominated to the IFF referee development group.
Development
The IFF and the Asia Oceania Floorball Confederation (AOFC) joint mentor coach programme was launched in the WFCQ 2019 with team New Zealand. The main objective of the IFF coach mentor programme is to close the gap between the teams and raise the understanding and awareness of good coaching in modern team sports. The so called six nations in Europe (Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Poland and Slovakia) are also planning to launch similar projects in the near future.
Anti-Doping
The IFF has provided feedback for the International Standard for Education (ISE), which is a new standard. Much of the feedback provided by the IFF has been taken into consideration by WADA in the second draft version. The IFF has also asked the Athletes’ Commission members to provide feedback on the new Anti-Doping Charter of Athlete Rights.
The Minutes from the IFF CB meeting will be published soon on the IFF website.
