The International World Games Association (IWGA) will elect a new Executive Committee at the Annual General Meeting in May. The IFF Secretary General John Liljelund is among the candidates for the new IWGA EXCO.
The IWGA published the list of candidates for Executive Committee elections on Tuesday 28th March. The representatives of the 39 member federations will elect the leadership team for the term until 2026 on 3rd May 2023 in Madrid, Spain. Seven candidates are looking to be elected for the four positions available in the Executive Committee. One of the seven candidates is the IFF Secretary General, John Liljelund. Liljelund is currently the IWGA Marketing Committee Chair.
— I’m running for the IWGA Executive Committee as I feel that the experience I have gathered through my work in IFF and Floorball can be of use in the development of The World Games and as I had been asked by a number of IWGA members to run for the position. I believe that there is quite some learnings to be taken from how we have built the Floorball events. I also think that I can help the IWGA in the fields of marketing, TV/Streaming and questions related to how to deal with Social media. I also hope to bring some new thinking and new knowledge to the experienced IWGA Board, Liljelund comments.
The World Games act as a showcase for non-Olympic sports. Floorball has been included in the official sports programme of TWG twice, most recently at TWG 2022 in Birmingham, Alabama. Before that, floorball was an official sport in 2017 in Wroclaw, Poland and an invitational sport in 1997 in Lahti, Finland. Next edition of The World Games will be held in 2025 in Chengdu, China. Liljelund has a long background of leading an international organisation and being resposible for the visibility and marketing of floorball. This experience could be of use for other IFs and of course for the IWGA Executive Committee.
— With the changes within the International Sports Community, after the decision to dissolve GAISF, makes the World Games especially important for the recognized International Federations. This is the only real showcase for us to promote our sport to the broader International community. In IWGA, if elected, I hope to work with questions on how to increase the visibility and awareness of the World Games and how to help the member associations with this. The more the IF’s and their national associations speak about the World Games the more important they become and the more visibility they then receive, Liljelund concludes.
The term for the new board members is three years and new elections will be held at the 2026 Annual General Meeting.
