The 15th Women’s World Floorball Championships in Ostrava served as the backdrop for a important moment in the sport’s development: the 2025 IFF Associations’ Meeting. Different than traditional presentations, the meeting was characterized by its highly interactive format, with national federations from different continents engaging in open, transparent, and productive dialogues about the future of the game.
A Collaborative Path Forward
The meeting highlighted several initiatives aimed at accelerating global growth, most notably the Floorball Fit4Future Programme. There are already 32 federations involved in the Program with 15 of them even in the Phase 2 focusing on tailored Development Action Plans for individual federations.
The spirit of cooperation was also evident in the discussions regarding the new IFF committee structure. This initiative is designed to increase the involvement of all federations and improve the flow of information. There are 44 federations and more than 170 motivated committee members now involved in the new structure which bring possibility to expand floorball capacity for development.
Insights from National Federations
The interactive nature of the meeting was praised by representatives from diverse floorball backgrounds:
- Ukraine (Andrii Oiovych, President): “It has been very inspiring to meet and share experiences, even getting a lot of good tips on how to solve our issues. The possibility to get to know the representatives from different countries and the IFF has been excellent. We also found the ideas presented for 3v3 to be really interesting for us.”
- Italy (Sonia Sopranzi, President): “As a first-time participant, I found the meeting very informative. It showed a strong climate of cooperation. The most important learning was that we need to build the federation from the base up.”
- Estonia (Joosep Perandi, CEO): “The group discussions allowed me to collect information from both younger and more mature countries. I now have a much clearer picture of how to work with the specific needs we have in Estonia.”
- USA (Brian Radichel): “It has been a revelation to see that we are not alone with our challenges. This meeting is so interesting that we would like to bring even more people from our federation to participate next time.”
- Singapore (Vignesh Kuppusami, Honorary Treasurer): “It was helpful to understand how other federations solve things. It was also important to get a picture of how the calendar structure changes will affect us in Asia and how we can build regular continental competitions.”
Future Formats and Competition Frameworks
The IFF remains committed to making floorball the most inclusive team sport, specifically through the 3v3 format. This discipline was seen by federation as a key driver for future growth on all continents and also inclusion in other multi-sport events next to the World Games. Registration is already open for the 2026 3v3 World Floorball Championships in Spain.
Regarding the new international competition structure, the meeting addressed the need to close the quality gap and reduce organizer fatigue. Discussions on the international calendar were held, and detailed communications regarding these changes will be shared with floorball family in January 2026.
A Message from IFF President Filip Suman
“The success of this meeting lies in its openness. We wanted to create a space where it wasn’t just the IFF speaking, but a place where every federation felt empowered to contribute.
I am particularly pleased with the open Q&A session, where no topic was off-limits. This level of transparent, open discussion is exactly what we need to move forward as a united community. Seeing the interaction between established federations and those still in their early growth phases proves that while our challenges may differ, our goal of making floorball a big and professionally managed sport is the same.”
Next IFF Associations’ Meeting will be held in December 2027 during the 16th Women’s World Floorball Championships in Turku, Finland.
