The fifth IFF Central Board (CB) meeting of the year took place on the weekend in Katowice, Poland in connection to the 10th Women’s U19 World Floorball Championships. During the meeting, the CB discussed the next steps in strategy implementation, ExCo questions and upcoming events.
The IFF 17th General Assembly
The 17th IFF General Assembly will take place in conjunction of the Men’s WFC 2022 in Zurich in Switzerland in Swiss Life Arena on Saturday the 12th of November 2022 at 8:30 in the morning. The IFF Member Associations have time until Monday the 12th of September 2022 to send in their nominations, motions and proposals to the IFF office and the IFF will send all the documents mentioned in the statutes to the IFF Member Associations no later than by Wednesday the 12th of October 2022.
Strategy Implementation
The IFF Strategy Implementation working group (SWG) held a meeting on the 18th of August. The objective of the meeting was to look over the process with the Strategy Implementation generic tables for the Suggested Actions. The IFF Office had updated the tables with responsible persons, taken and planned actions during the summer. The SWG will from the November meeting provide the CB with a summary report of the development of the Suggested actions. The SWG will send out a letter to all the members of the Strategy Subgroups thanking them for the activity and inform about the continued process in mid of September.
The IFF Office has prepared an updated draft of the Strategy Implementation template for the CB meeting after a validity check and approval round for the responsibilities given. This will also be the base for the reporting to the IFF General Assembly to show the progress in the Strategy work.
ExCo
The next meeting with Presidents and Secretary Generals of the Euro Floorball Tour countries will now be held in Copenhagen on the 22nd of September to mainly discuss the issue of the Future of Floorball, among other things.
The IFF held a second meeting with the Secretary Generals of the EFT countries to discuss the first learnings of the implementation of the IFF Physical Play project. The countries showed continued support to the project and a next meeting will be organised after the experiences during the WFC 2022 in Zurich.
Athletes’ Commission
The ATC chair Ms. Plechan has been nominated for the new WADA Athlete Council, for the group 2. The IFF President and the IFF Secretary General have taken actions to support the candidacy, among the International Federations close to IFF. The election is done by the WADA approved IF’s Athlete Committee chairs during the 29th to 31st of August. The assumption was that IFF would have the results of the election prior to the CB meeting, but WADA has now informed that there are six candidates, who have secured their seats in the election process having received most votes and that there are three candidates which have received the same number of votes and there needs to be a second round of election to clarify the candidates for the 7th and 8th position, on 2nd-4th September. There has not been any information whether Ms. Plechan is among the top three candidates.
Ms. Plechan is also collecting feedback from ATC members about The Future of Floorball and 3 x 15 play format.
The IFF ATC will have a meeting during the Champions Cup 2023 in Tampere.
The World Games 2022
The outcome of the TWG 2022 was that the athletes and the teams present all really enjoyed the event. The experience of being part of a multi-sport event is vastly different to our own major events and having the opportunity to see so many other sports and athletes is not only enjoyable but also a good learning experience from both a sporting and administration point of view. Also the accommodation of the teams in the campus area of the University of Birmingham at Alabama brought more of the feeling of being in the Athlete’s Village.
The IFF had challenges during the event with for exmple the streaming during the three first days, but since this was not an IFF event, the IFF was depending on the actions of the BOC and the challenges with the internet connections, streaming quality and other issues were unfortunately out of the hands of the IFF.
IFF EVENTS
U19 WFC 2022, Katowice, Poland
The Women’s U19 WFC 2022 has been very successful in Katowice in Poland. Few minor challenges occured but the LOC did a very good work by building an event with two venues and 16 teams so quickly.
The IFF is greatly appreciative of the proactive actions of the Austrian Floorball Federation in stepping in to fill the place of the Singapore team in the event after teh withdrawal of Team Singapore. They managed to confirm their participation and secure the confirmation of their players involvement within just a couple of days, which must have required a huge amount of work on their part. Austria has in Social Media thanked the IFF for being able to participate in the Event.
Euro Floorball Cup & EuroFloorball Challenge 2022
Due to lack of organisers of the EFC and the EFCh 2022 the events had to be cancelled. There were no interest from any countries to organise the EFC and it was discussed with two clubs to organise the the EuroFloorball Challenge.
It was proposed that the IFF Competition department should start the discussions with the organisations with big Club tournaments in Europe, which are organised during the summer months, to arrange the EFC and the EFCh next summer in these tournaments to provide the possibility for all the European members.
Women’s WFC 2023
The host cities and groups for the WFCQ 2023 have been decided and more information will be published on Tuesday 6th September 2022.
The teams for the final round in Singapore will be decided by regional qualifications played in Europe, Asia Oceania and the Americas. From the European events 12 teams will qualify, from Asia-Oceania two, and one from the Americas. Only the host country receive direct qualification.
IFF has sent the first part of the Organising fee to the WFC 2023 organising, which the SFA has approved.
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 the ZSC Lions will host four home games prior to the WFC. The main concern with the Swiss Life arena is how everything will be working as the arena operator has so little experience of running it. The IFF Competition department expresses that LOC have done a good job of keeping the IFF updated on the progress of the building of Swiss Life Arena. The LOC has no real concerns, even if the ZSC Lions have not played any games in the Swiss Life Arena, but they will have played a few friendly games and four league games before the WFC will move into the arena.
The ticket sales have continued well and there are no tickets left for the Swiss market for the finals weekend, but there might be some tickets released later, if there will be some tickets returned to the LOC from travel agencies or from abroad. Special country ticketing links have been created for Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden. One major challenge is to meet the needs of the international fans, which the LOC is working on. Some 65% of the budgeted ticket sales could be reached. The total costs for the event will be 6,2 million, with a surplus of 300.000 CHF.
The agreement with PolarHD has been finalised and IFF has made the agreements with the main TV companies in Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden and the host. Discussions are still ongoing with Latvia and Protocol Sports is looking for solutions in a number of markets like Brasilia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Slovenia and the South-East Asian countries.
The LOC and the IFF have been working on the set-up for the bi-lateral service and securing the satellite uplink via the Swiss TV. The satellite has been booked for the whole event.
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. All invited teams have registered in time and that the match schedule is under preparation.
Men’s U19 WFC 2023, Frederikshavn, Denmark
The contract with Floorball Denmark regarding the U19 WFC 2023 has been signed. Communication with the LOC has begun and the progress is ongoing on a good level. The logo and graphics for the event have been finalised soon. The IFF Competition department held a planning meeting with the LOC during the U19 WFC 2022 in Poland.
The Americas U19 WFC qualification was played in Draper, Salt Lake City, USA, on 2nd and 3rd September 2022 and USA qualified for the U19 WFC 2023 Final round, and the AOFC U19 WFC qualification will be played in Wellington, New Zealand from 29th September – 1st October 2022.
The interest to organise the Men’s U19 WFC 2023 qualifications in Europe is, as earlier reported, very low. In July it was clear that there was no organiser for the September weekend, so it was opened up for organising the qualifications until the end of the international weekend in February 2023. Currently there is communication with three possible organisers.
WFC 2025 & 2026
The search for interested organisers of the WFCs 2025 and 2026 has begun with the dead-line 18th September 2022 whereafter the bidding process will start.
The minutes from the IFF CB meeting will be published soon here
