The IFF ExCo last night took the decision to cancel the remaining Men’s U19 WFC 2021 Qualification events in Europe and the Americas, due to the continuing Covid-19 crisis.
After months of discussions with the organisers and participating teams, including several postponements, all the qualifications have now been cancelled.
In Europe, both organisers (Italy and Poland) had worked very hard to secure the possibility to safely proceed with organising the events, however there remained a high level of doubt about the participation of the teams. Five teams advised that they definitely could not participate, and all others indicated some amount of hesitation, whether to do with long-term restrictions on Floorball activities within their own countries, safety during the event, or to do with possible quarantine/testing requirements, especially on the return to their home countries after the event.
In the Americas, the lack of possibility to safely and easily travel between USA & Canada also meant there was no realistic possibility of this event going ahead as planned.
The AOFC group had already been cancelled earlier, also due to the tight Covid-19 travel and quarantine restrictions within the region.
– It is very disappointing that the Covid-19 situation continues to prevent us from holding international events. For the IFF Member Associations, the logistics of international travel at this time, especially with junior players, is too great, and the focus for most countries is on re-establishing their national competitions, which the IFF fully supports, said Sarah Mitchell, IFF Event Manager.
MU19 WFC 2021 Teams and Groups
As earlier decided by the IFF Central Board, in the situation where qualification events cannot be held, the qualifying teams will be determined based on current rankings. For the U19 Men this means that the following teams will qualify from each region:
AOFC – Australia, Japan, New Zealand
AMER – Canada
EUR – Poland, Russia, Slovenia
According to the ballot draw for the Men’s U19 WFC 2021 the groups will look as follows:
The 11th MU19 WFC 2021 is played from 28th April – 2nd May 2021 in Brno, at the Vodova Arena. The match schedule will be published tomorrow.
