The IFF Central Board (CB) held its first meeting of the year in Zurich, Switzerland on February 16th. During the meeting, the Swiss Floorball Association informed, that the Men’s WFC 2022 will be played in the Swiss Life Arena in Zurich and AXA Arena in Winterthur. It was also decided that the IFF office will stay in Finland 2021 – 2024.
The IFF CB further decided that there will be a consultative meeting organised in May for European member associations, who have been participating in IFF events, regarding the Euro Floorball Championships.
On Saturday, February 15th, a Central Board workshop was organised, with items such as the Sport Accord Good Governance review and the needed actions on the agenda. In addition, the next steps for the Future of Floorball and the Euro Floorball Championships were discussed. The CB also evaluated the IFF Associations’ Meeting, which took place in December 2019.
Euro Floorball Championships and Future of Floorball
Based on the IFF CB workshop held on Saturday the IFF CB decided to invite the European Floorball countries, which have participated to IFF events for a consultancy meeting concerning the Euro Floorball Championships. The meeting will take place in conjunction with the WU19 2020 in Uppsala, Sweden on the 9th of May 2020.
The IFF CB decided to organise additional Future of Floorball format tests in the season 2020 – 2021, based on the RACC proposal in the EuroFloorball Cup, EuroFloorball Challenge, Women’s WFCQ in 2021 and in The World Games tournament (Men only) in July 2021.
New Champions Cup Home & Away format starting from 2023
The Champions Cup Steering Group (CCSG) held its in Copenhagen on January 29th and discussed the Champions Cup Home & Away Concept and the implementation. The IFF CB approved the new concept that will be launched only starting from the CC 2023 because of the fact that it is very hard to evaluate the effects of the changed WFC 2022 played in October/November, due to the FIFA World Cup. This means that the CC Final4 will still be played still in January 2023 and the stakeholders have agreed to support to the organiser. Before taking the next steps, the IFF will wait for the comments from the CC stakeholders.
Upcoming IFF Events
Women’s U19 WFC 2020
The 9th Women’s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played 6th – 10th of May 2020 at the IFU Arena in Uppsala, Sweden. The arena has a capacity of 3200 spectators. For the Women’s U19 WFC in 2020, a new playing system will be used. 16 teams will play in one division (rather than the old A- & B-divisions) and are divided into four groups according to ranking and ballot.
The ticket sales for the event has started. Get your tickets here!
Visit the Women’s U19 WFC 2020 website here.
Seminars and Meetings during U19 WFC 2020
The Swedish Floorball Federation is also planning to organise a Good Governance seminar in cooperation with the Swedish Sports Confederation. In addition, the IFF will organise a consultative meeting concerning the Future of Floorball and the Euro Floorball Championships.
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 12 teams have now secured their spot at the WFC. The last four spots will be decided during the Asia & Oceania qualification event.
Visit the WFC 2020 website here.
WFC 2020 Ballot & Tickets
The group ballot will be held on March 10th 2020 in the Casino Helsinki, Fennia hall.
The tickets sales for the final weekend packages for the Hartwall Arena and the packages for the Finnish fan’s (follow your team) started on November 8th. The Preliminary round and quarter-final daily tickets will be on sale from April 2020 with an opening weekend package, daily tickets, follow your team (FIN) tickets and a venue pass for the Helsinki Ice Hall.
Get your tickets here!
AOFC WFC Qualifications
The AOFC qualification is played March 2nd – 6th in Bangkok, Thailand, and the four best teams will qualify. Visit IFF AOFC page here
Coronavirus update
Due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) situation, a consultation process has taken place, involving all of the AOFC participating countries, the host country, and various IFF committees. Based on these discussions and current information given by the World Health Organisation and the participating country governments, the decision has been taken to play the Men’s WFC 2020 AOFC Qualifications, as planned. Due to the withdrawal of Philippines, the match schedule has been changed and the event is shortened by one competition day. The new competition days are 2nd – 6th March. The IFF, Floorball Thailand, and the participating countries will still all continue to closely monitor the information from WHO and various government bodies and any change in travel advice may still lead to the event being cancelled.
Champions Cup 2021
The Men’s and Women’s Champions Cup 2021 will be played in the AXA Arena in Winterthur, January 9th – 10th.
Men’s U19 WFC 2021
28 teams have registered for the 11th Men’s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played in Czech Republic in the period 28.04-02.05.2021. This is two more teams compared to 2019. The new teams are Singapore (has not participated since 2005) and China. The qualifications, if more than 16 teams register, shall be played in the period 07 – 13.09.2021.
If correctly registered and all obligations according to the financial regulations and licence criteria are fulfilled the following teams are directly qualified: Czech Republic, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Latvia, Slovakia, Denmark, Germany and Norway.
Women’s WFC 2021
26 teams have registered for the event 13th Women’s World Floorball Championships (WFC) played in Uppsala, Sweden, December 4th – 12th 2021. Only the organiser, Sweden, receives direct qualification to the Final Round and the qualifications are played in February 2021.
Visit the WFC 2021 website here.
Women’s U19 WFC 2022
The 10th Women’s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played in Wellington, New Zealand, in May 2022. New Zealand has previously hosted Men’s and Women’s WFC qualifications as well as a Men’s U19 WFC qualification but this will be their first final round event.
Men’s WFC 2022
The 14th Men’s World Floorball Championships will be played in Switzerland. The WFC 2022 arenas are Swiss Life in Zurich and AXA arena in Winterthur.
The time frame is different than usually, due to the fact that the Football World Cup will be played in December 2022. The IFF Central Board decided after having communicated with the Swiss Floorball Association, that the WFC 2022 will be played within the time period 15.10-13.11.2022. The Swiss Floorball will update the days in later stage during spring 2020.
Organisers for WFC 2023 and WFC 2024
The IFF looks for organisers to host the World Floorball Championships 2023 and 2024 as follows:
- Women’s WFC 2023 – to be played in the period 01-11.12.2023
- Men’s WFC 2024 – to be played in the period 06-15.12.2024
IFF further looks for organisers to host the U19 World Floorball Championships 2023 and 2024 as follows:
- Men’s 12th U19 WFC 2023 – to be played in the week 01-07.05.2023
- Women’s 11th U19 WFC 2024 – to be played in the week 29.04-05.05.2024
The interest to organise an IFF event shall be the IFF by hand latest 29.02.2020, to e-mail competition@floorball.sport. Read more here.
Other Events
World University Floorball Championships 2020
The International University Sports Federation (FISU) will organise the World University Floorball Championship 2020 in Koper, Slovenia, from the 24th to 28th of June 2020. The registration for the event is open and the entry forms must be submitted in the FISU Online Accreditation System . More information found here
The World Games 2021
The World Games 2021 are held in Birmingham, USA, 15-25 July 2021 with floorball included on the programme.
The Birmingham Organising Committee has approved the extra demonstration activities requested by the IFF, which provides opportunities to present the sport at the TWG Plaza, in the City and the venue during the tournament and the planning process has started in cooperation with USFbA. The USFbA is also planning to organise the US Nationals in Birmingham in the end of August 2020, which can act as a test event before the World Games. The plan is also to organise IFF development seminars during the event.
The TV production will be done by the IBS, like in Worclaw and floorball, like most sports will preliminary have the last two days (semi-finals and medal matches) produced for the TWG Channel.
Visit The World Games 2021 website here.
Special Olympics World Games 2021
Unfortunately, The World Winter Games 2021 in Sweden has been cancelled, due to financial issues after the LOC had not received the financial support from the Swedish Government. The Special Olympics are looking for solution in order to be able to find a new host with short notice.
The IFF has been in close contact with the Special Olympics and the Special Olympics have in partnership with the International Floorball Federation (IFF), launched their first real-time sports data project at the Invitational Games in Sweden. The Games took place from the 1st to the 4th of February and featured 90 floorball players from Sweden, Belgium, Finland and Spain competing across the competition.
Asia Indoor and Martial Arts Games in 2021
Floorball is on the programme of the Asia Indoor and Martial Arts Games in 2021. These Multi Sport Games are organised every four years by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), and the 2021 event has been awarded to the Thailand Olympic Committee.
The preliminary dates are April 24th until May 2nd. The host cities are Bangkok, and Pattaya. A total of only 20 sports have been confirmed to be on the programme and the new confirmed sports are Netball, Taekwondo and Floorball. The OCA has decided that not only countries from Asia (45), but also countries from Oceania (17) may take part, a total of 62 countries.
Rules of the Game & Updated Regulations
Rules of the Game 2022
The work with the edition 2022 of the IFF Rules of the Game has started and the IFF has invited all IFF member Associations and all persons in any IFF body to send in proposals on changes of the valid IFF Rules of the Game (Edition 2018). The proposals, presented in priority order and in the format the game rules are written, with examples, shall be the IFF competition office by hand – both as a signed pdf and a word document attached to an e-mail to kratz@floorball.sport – not later than February 29, 2020.
Updated Regulations
The Central Board approved the updates to the Champions Cup regulation and the Transfer regulations.
Transfer fees 2020
- International transfer to a country ranked between 1 and 25 in the official IFF WFC ranking is 220 CHF
- International transfer to a country ranked number 26 or below in the official IFF WFC ranking is 110 CHF
- For a player under 15 years no transfer fee shall be due
- Temporary play transfer is 110 CHF
- Student overseas transfer is 110 CHF
- Intermediate student transfer is 55 CHF
- Intercontinental visitor transfer is 110 CHF for each 60-day period
- For Express handling of a transfer the transfer fee is 330 CHF. This applies to all transfer categories
IFF Anti-Doping topics
On December 9th the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA’s) Executive Committee (ExCo) unanimously endorsed the recommendation made by the independent Compliance Review Committee (CRC) that the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) be declared non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code (Code) for a period of four years. Now RUSADA has disputed WADA’s allegations and the matter is referred to CAS and the decision will be made earliest in April 2020. The IFF will follow up on the issue.
IFF License System update
IFF will use the WFC 2021 registration as a test, before the Tier system takes full effect in 2023. Most of the registered teams have already taken care of their responsibilities.
IFF Athletes’ Commission
The male members of the ATC will end their term on 29th February. New elections are underway for the next term of 2020-2024. Seven nominations were received and the first lot of voting has taken place during the Men’s WFC Qualifications. The voting will be completed at the AOFC qualification and announcement of results will happen around March 16th.
IFF Member Associations
The IFF CB is following up on Member Associations that have depths and their payment plans are continuously being evaluated and followed. Currently, the IFF is following the pay-off plans of Canada, Cote d’Ivoire, Malaysia, Russia and Slovenia.
IFF Sustainability actions
The IFF has officially signed the UN Sports for Climate Action Framework and committed to the fight against climate change. The UN Sports for Climate Action Framework aims to help sports organisations reduce emissions caused by their operations and leverage the worldwide popularity of sport to engage millions of fans in the effort.
The IFF has joined two (out of four) working groups in the Sports for Climate Action Framework. The working groups serve to create guidance, best practices and measurement tools for implementing the principles outlined in the Framework
1) Systematic Effort
2) Reducing climate impact (rep. John Liljelund, Secretary General, IFF)
3) Sustainable consumption
4) Educate and advocate for Climate Action (rep. Tero Kalsta, Sales Coordinator, IFF)
The signatories will hold their first meeting during the Sports Positive Summit in March 2020.
The first task for the IFF was to calculate the carbon footprint the IFF office has produced (flights) during 2019. The outcome for was 139.9t CO2. (used calculation tool: myClimate.com (Foundation myclimate)) suggested by Julie Duffus, the Olympic Movement Sustainability Manager. The idea is to have the compensation of the IFF CO2 as an element of a partnership package.
The IFF is also investigating the possibility to partner with the Finnish non-profit organisation Compensate as carbon offset partner. This would entail the IFF purchasing its compensation quotas from them and we could also the link or even embed their services on the IFF website (working group 4). Hopefully the IFF can also challenge national federations to participate in compensation purchases (within financial resources).
IFF Office
In accordance with the previous CB decisions, discussions with the Finnish Association and the Ministry of Education and Culture has been held during the autumn, to ensure the interest of the Finnish Federation to host the IFF Office for the next four year term and for the Ministry of Education and Culture to support the Finnish Floorball Federation for hosting the office. As a result of these discussion, the Ministry of Education and Culture has informed that the Ministry will contribute to the effective function of the Office in Finland also in the future. The IFF CB decided to approve the proposal of keeping the IFF Office in Finland for the years 2021-2024.
The IFF CB Meeting minutes will be published soon here.
