Photo by Matyas Klapa
Earlier this year we spoke with the new Executive Director, Zuzana Svobodová about her role joining and working at the IFF. As she stepped into her new role alongside Secretary General, John Liljelund there were undoubtedly changes that were made to the internal structure and organisation of the IFF. In our progression of this interview series we also spoke with John Liljelund about how things have changed, adapted and look going forward, both internally and externally for the IFF and its member federations.
The IFF has been under change these past few years with both the external direction and internal staff changes. Can you explain how your role as Secretary General fits into that and how you see the changes going forward?
The IFF has grown both as a sport and as an international federation. As the number of tasks the IFF was handling, it became important to clarify responsibilities and ensure that people can focus on the areas where they add the most value.
My role as Secretary General is now chancing from being involved in almost every operational area into a more strategic external-facing role. You can describe it as serving as the federation’s “foreign minister”. My primary focus is on international relations, strengthening our position within the global sports movement, and building partnerships that can help floorball continue to grow.
This includes relations with organizations such as the IOC, the International World Games Association (IWGA), Association of IOC Recognised International Sport Federations (ARISF), University Sports (FISU) and other key stakeholders. It also involves strategic business development, particularly around audio-visual media rights, equipment manufacturers, coaching education development and other growth-driving initiatives.
I believe this clearer division of the management responsibilities will make the IFF stronger and bring more strength to the organisation. It allows us to become more professional, more efficient and better prepared for the future.
Your role was in the past far more all-encompassing with relation to internal and external matters in the IFF. What can you focus on more now that wasn’t quite possible before?
A large part of my work involved operational management and daily administration. While those tasks remain important, they naturally consume a great deal of time and therefore limited my ability to focus on the long-term strategic development. There was not ime to focus on the most important topics.
The new structure gives me much more time to concentrate on a few areas that are critical for the future of the sport. One example is strengthening floorball’s position within the international sports community and ensuring that our relationships with key organizations remain strong. Another is the development of our commercial activities, particularly the sales of the audio-visual media rights and equipment partnerships, which are essential for growing both revenue and discoverability and visibility for the sport
I can also dedicate more attention to the governance development, long-term strategy implementation and coaching education initiatives that support our member associations around the world. One concrete task here is running the EU Erasmus+ COACHES project in 2027-2029, which aims to create national coaching education standards for the participating countries. This allows me to spend more time looking five years ahead and helping create the conditions for the next stage of floorball’s growth rather than focusing primarily on today’s operational challenges.
As mentioned there have been internal changes in the IFF including new Executive Director, Zuzanna Svobodova. What is your link alongside her in the federation and are there any projects/tasks that you will work on together?
We work very closely together with Zuzana and I believe that our roles are supporting each other quite well. Now during the first six months there has been a lot of transformation of information. But Zuzana has a vast experience in a number fields and has excellently filled her role as the new executive manager.
As Executive Director, she has responsibility for leading the operational side of the federation and ensuring that the day-to-day activities and projects are delivered efficiently.
There are several areas where our work overlaps. We cooperate closely on strategic projects, major events and business development initiatives. For example, media rights development, preparations for future World Floorball Championships and the continued development of our club competition structures all require close coordination between strategic leadership and operational execution. As we definitely share the same goals, even if we represent different approaches, we are, I at least think so are complementing each other quite well. It definitely helps that we have worked quite closely together in a number of years and have now discussed a lot of how we best can work together.
Floorball was once again announced as part of the Sports Program for The World Games, this time in 2029 in Karlsruhe, Germany. As Vice President of the International World Games Association how do you see Floorball as part of TWG and how does TWG fit into the future vision of the IFF?
The World Games is at the moment the most important international multi-sport events for floorball and for many developing sports globally. Being included again in Karlsruhe 2029 with both men and women, is both recognising the progress floorball has made and an important opportunity for continued growth. The TWG is the best platform where we can demonstrate the value and importance of Floorball to the International sports community.
From an IWGA perspective, floorball brings many of the qualities that modern sports events are looking for. It is fast, exciting, gender-balanced, relatively easy to understand for new audiences and well suited for television and digital platforms. These are important strengths in today’s sports environment. For us, The World Games provides a global visibility far beyond what we can achieve on our own. The games allow us to reach new audiences, engage with National Olympic Committees especially now when the involvement of the NOC’s are growing as they are coordinating the national delegations for the games.
What do you see as the brightest point for the development of the sport moving forward?
I truly believe that the focus on the development of the member federations organisations and operations, as defined on the IFF Strategy 2021-2032 will help us to change the focus of how we work as a global movement. This will help to us reach our strategic goals and hopefully in the end show that we are that good that we are invited to more international multi-sport games.
The fact that member federations need to strengthen their operations, will also mean that they need to put more resources on the internal development and not only in participation in the events. I believe the introduction of the IFF Licence system will in a positive way help to steer this.
I also think that the development of the 3v3 dicipline will be helping us to reach these targets, as a secondary discipline to the 5v5 floorball of today. Floorball is still affordable, inclusive, safe, easy to start playing and adaptable to many different environments. This make it attractive not only to players but also to schools, communities and sports organizations looking to increase participation.
To achieve this we need to be brave enough to change the way we work in IFF and how the member federations are working – the tools are there, but the next years will be crucial of how we can bring the sport forward.
