The IFF Central Board held its fourth meeting of the year during the weekend in Prague, Czech Republic. During the meeting Rwanda was approved as IFF member no 69.

The IFF CB also discussed the future of floorball proposal and there will be a separate news published on that topic on the IFF website soon. The IFF CB has also conveyed condolence to the family and friends of deceased GAISF President Mr. Patrick Baumann, after his unexpected death during the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games 2018.

Rwanda IFF member

The Organisation Rwandaise de Floorball (ORF) applied for the membership in the beginning of October. ORF is now working towards receiving recognition from both the Sports Council of Rwanda as well as the National Olympic Committee. The IFF CB approved the Organisation Rwandaise de Floorball as the provisional member of IFF.

IFF General Assembly

The Central Board planned the upcoming IFF General Assembly and especially worked with the documents, which are needed for the GA. The documents will be sent out to all IFF member associations latest on the 7th of November 2018. The invitation for the General Assembly was sent out in the beginning of September 2018 and the actual meeting takes place on the 8th of December 2018.

Upcoming IFF Events

Men’s WFC 2018

The Men’s World Floorball Championships are organised in Prague, Czech Republic, December 1st – 9th 2018. All the WFC games will be streamed in the IFF YouTube channel and there will also be quite vast TV coverage from the WFC. More information is to be find here: iffwfc.org

Champions Cup 2019

The Champions Cup 2019 – Final Four will be played in Gävle, Sweden, January 3rd-4th. This is the first time that the IFF Champions Cup will be played in its new format. The champions from the top four floorball countries: Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland will participate. On Thursday (3rd of January) the teams will play semi-finals and the medal matches will be played on Friday. The tournament is played in connection with the Swedish Association Youth Tournament. Visit the Champions Cup FB page: www.facebook.com/FloorballChampionsCup

Men’s U19 WFC 2019

The Men’s U19 World Floorball Championships 2019 are played in Halifax, Canada, May 8th – 12th. This will be the first time that the Men’s U19 WFC has been held outside of Europe. The qualifications for the MU19 WFC 2019 have all bee played and qualified teams to the B-division are: Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Russia and Slovenia. There will be altogether 16 teams participating to the final round in Halifax, Canada.

You can access the match schedule from the IFF MU19 WFC web page: www.floorball.org/pages/EN/Mens-U19-WFC-2019 and on the official MU19 WFC website you can also find more information about the event: http://floorball2019.com

Women’s WFC 2019

The IFF received 30 registrations for the 12th IFF Women’s World Floorball Championships, to be held in December 2019 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and the qualification groups have been decided. Switzerland, as the host country, receive automatic qualification, while all other 29 countries must compete for the remaining 15 places. For Belgium and Philippines this will be their first ever WFC qualification event. The Final Round will be held with 16 teams, divided into 4 groups according to their ranking and ballot draw.

Future Event organisers

The IFF has opened the bidding to apply for the men’s WFC 2022, which will be played between the time frame of 20.10-13.11.2022. The time frame is different than in the WFCs usually due to the fact that the Football World Cup 2022 will be played in December 2022. The last last day to hand in the bid, is 16th of November 2018.

The IFF has also asked for U19 WFC 2021 and U19 WFC 2022 organisers. The last day to send in the interest to organise the events is November 15th, 2018.

IFF Committees

Rules and Competition Committee (RACC)

The CB decided to propose to the IFF General Assembly to accept the creation of the Euro Floorball Championships and the IFF Central Board will start to work for detailed solution how the Euro Floorball Championships concept will be built.

The IFF CB decided to update the IFF competition regulations based on the proposal by the IFF RACC on changing the handling of team lists where teams would submit one team list 30 days prior to the event, instead of a first list and a final list.

The video based goal review system will be used in the upcoming men’s WFC 2018 in Prague. The referees can review the situation if the ball was in the goal or not and the teams are entitled to have one challenge during the regular game time, one challenge during the extra time and one challenge during the penalty shootout.

Referee Committee (RC)

The IFF CB member Mr. Carlos Lopez was nominated as the chair of the IFF RC. The IFF CB also approved the IFF RC proposal of 138 international referees and 24 international referee observers from 29 IFF member associations. The IFF RC proposed the referees and observers based on the proposal from the IFF member associations.

Medical Committee

The IFF has made all the required Corrective Actions for the IFF Code compliance and these have been approved by WADA and IFF has therefore completed the process. This means that IFF is now WADA Code Compliant, as of 16.10.2018. The IFF has also sent in the nomination of the IFF ATC member Ms. Agata Plechan as a member of the WADA Athletes Committee.

Athletes Commission

IFF Athletes Commission member Mr. Johan Samuelsson has informed that he has difficulties to use the needed time for the IFF ATC, due to work, family and sport commitments, and has asked to step down from the ATC. Therefore the IFF CB decided to nominate Mr. Ole Mossin Olesen (Norway) as an IFF Athletes Commission member.

Development

There have been three Floorball Development seminars since the last CB meeting. One in Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire in September, one in Vientiane In Laos in October and one in Delhi in India in October as well. One seminar is still planned for the year 2018 and that will take place in Dublin in Ireland.