Floorball continues to grow as a sport within Special Olympics. According to the latest census report from Special Olympics, the number of floorball players has increased from 26,108 to 36,375 and floorball is now played in 63 programmes/countries.

– Since IFF and Special Olympics signed the official proclamation in 2012, we have gone from 0 programmes to 63, although for sure floorball was played in some programmes already before 2012. In a few year we hope to have 100 programmes offering floorball within Special Olympics, says Steen Houman, IFF Central Board member and chair of the Special Olympics Floorball Resource team.

In the Special Olympics Programmes, there a most active players in India and in one of the USA programmes in Arizona. There are also countries that offer Special Olympics Floorball, which are not yet IFF Members, like Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cyprus, DR Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Moldova, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Syria, UAE and Uruguay.

– During the years it has become evident that floorball is a great sport for athletes with intellectual disability. It is easy to understand the aim of the game and athletes of different skill levels can play together. In addition, floorball rules can easily be adopted to suite different target groups and conditions, which is one of the great advantages of the sport, says IFF Communications Manager and ParaFloorball officer Merita Bruun.

In Special Olympics Floorball is played four versus four (three field players + goalies). The playing area is 20 x 12 m. Within Special Olympics countries are called programmes.

Special Olympics World Winter Games 2022 in Kazan

The Special Olympics have informed that the World Winter Games 2022 will take place in Kazan, Russia. There will be 56 teams present in the floorball tournament. The floorball event will be played at the Kazan Tennis academy, where six floorball courts will be available.

More on Special Olympics visit www.specialolympics.org!