The fourth IFF Central Board (CB) meeting of the year took place on the weekend in Madrid, Spain. During the meeting, the CB discussed the next steps in strategy implementation, past WFC qualification events, Future of Floorball testing and The World Games 2022 as well as other upcoming events.
The IFF General Assembly
The IFF Central Board announced that the 17th IFF General Assembly will take place in conjunction of the Men’s WFC 2022 in Switzerland in the Swiss Life Arena on Saturday the 12th of November 2022 at 8:30.
Strategy implementation
The IFF Strategy Implementation working group (SWG) and the IFF Office held a meeting to agree about how the Strategy process shall be continued. To set the plan for how to continue the work of the Strategy Subgroups, the division of tasks between the Strategy Working Group (SWG) and the IFF Office and how to streamline the output of the Strategy subgroups and build and create a generic template for the Suggested Actions, with taken and planned actions.
The process will now for the Strategy Subgroups move from an operational stage to become more of an advisory role. The SWG members and the Office responsible persons have updated the subgroup Priority lists with responsible persons streamlined them to have all the information needed in the Implementation templates.
The SWG/IFF Office prepared the first draft of the Strategy Implementation template for the CB meeting and this will also be the base for the reporting to the IFF General Assembly to show the progress in the Strategy work.
The IFF Central Board also discussed about the future media solutions within the IFF. The idea is to increase the awareness of the sport – while creating a communication platform where our community is entertained, informed, engaged and keen to be active users. The IFF digital channels serve the purpose of maintaining and distributing floorball content to its target groups (member associations, athletes, stakeholders).
WFC 2022 qualifications
AMERICAS 29-30.04.2022 in Fort Worth, Texas
Canada qualified for the final round.
EUR 1 25-28.05.2022 in Valmiera, Latvia
Following teams qualified for the final round: Finland, Latvia, Denmark, and Estonia.
As a part of the WFCQ in Latvia, IFF had initiated a charity game between Finland and Sweden to support the Ukraine Floorball Federation. The game was played the day before the WFCQ started in Valmiera and Koceni on the 24th of May. There were 630 spectators at the venue, and the match was viewed by 8,500 online. A big thanks must go to all that supported the event – in particular the Finnish & Swedish federations, Latvian federation, Unihoc (who have donated approx. 1500 clothing items to UFF), and Olly Hogben whose commentary fee was donated to UFF. In total approximately EUR 4500 was raised for the Ukraine Federation. On the IFF YouTube there was a possibility for the viewers to donate to the Ukraine Floorball Federation.
EUR 2 25-28.05.2022 in Koceni, Latvia
Following teams qualified for the final round: Sweden, Norway and Poland.
EUR 3, 24-27.05.2022 in Celano, Italy
Following teams qualifying for the final round: Slovakia, Czech Republic and Germany.
AOFC, 31.05-04.06.2022 in Singapore
Following teams qualified for the final round: Australia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Future of Floorball
The IFF Office has started to make an analysis in regard to the evaluation process of the Future of Floorball tests. A goal analysis will be made from the WFC qualifications for WFC 2022. There is also a statistical analysis to be made comparing a number of elements between playing 3×15 minutes and 3×20 minutes in the games from where there is video material available.
The Future of Floorball questionnaire has been sent to the WFC official staff, participating teams and the LOC’s.
The World Games 2022
The preparations for The World Games in Birmingham are now moving in the right direction, even though there are still some open questions and everything should be ready when Floorball starts on the 8th of July and the final being on the 12th of July.
Concerning the World Games, the teams have now given their final lists which have been submitted to TWG organisers. These will be published on 6th June. Special Olympics will do some exhibition games in intermissions on Saturday 9th July.
Domestic TV distribution: CBS/CBS Sports Network, which will broadcast two 1-hour shows on CBS and then a daily program on the CBS Sport Network. The Olympic channel will provide the an 24/7 channel. ISB has the rights for the rest of the World.
The Olympic channel will stream all the content for the market where there are no taker of the channel. IFF can stream the preliminary stage own additional production on its own YouTube channel, without geo-blocking. Allowed to distribute the stream form final rounds with geo-blocking. The IWGA/ISB have provided free media rights to Ukraine.
Ticket sales looks good and by percentage Sumo is leading the competition and there are some 300,000 tickets sales. A ticket sales report has been promised to be sent to the IF’s.
IFF Events
Men’s WFC 2022, Zurich, Switzerland
The Men’s WFC 2022 is played 5th – 13th of November in Zurich and Winterthur. Visit the website here!
The construction of the Swiss Life Arena is progressing as planned and should be ready in time. The group ballot will be held in Bern on 8th June, after which the first match schedule will be published, so that the LOC can start the ticket sales on the 15th June 2022. The final is already sold out apart for some international packages. The ticket sales is now focusing on the opening weekend and the hospitality packages. The initial target of 20,000 school pupils attending day matches is already reached and the target has been raised to 25,000.
All the available sponsorship packages have been sold with the total income of 1,3 million CHF and a meeting with all sponsors have been held on 31st May. A total of 10 Mobiliar Street Floorball Tour will be organised, with the first event organised in the French part in Sierre in May.
Women’s U19 WFC 2022, Katowice, Poland
The Women’s U19 WFC 2022 is played 31st of August – 4th of September in Katowice, Poland.
The preparations are ongoing and the logo for event has been finalised and the website will be launched in early June.
EuroFloorball Cup 2022 & EuroFloorball Challenge 2022
The IFF Competition department is still discussing with potential organisers of the EFC and the EFCh 2022 with the aim to play last weekend of August.
Champions Cup 2023, Lempäälä, Finland
The Champions Cup 2023 will be played at Bläk Boks arena in Lempäälä next to Tampere, Finland, 7th – 8th January 2023.
Men’s U19 WFC 2023, Frederikshavn, Denmark
The U19 WFC 2023 preparations are ongoing and communication with the LOC has really only just begun. The logo and graphics for the event will be finalised soon and the website will be launched prior to the Women’s U19 WFC 2022. The event will be played from the 26th to 30th of April 2023.
The minutes from the IFF CB meeting will be published soon here