The Swedish Floorball Federation together with Värmland’s Floorball Association, make further efforts to attract new target groups. The Floorball Flex (Innebandy Flex) project aims to create new inclusive training and competition formats. The Swedish Sports Confederation is supporting the project with SEK 370,000 through their fund (Framåtfonden).

One of the goals in the Swedish Floorball Federation’s long-term vision plan “Swedish Floorball Wants” (Svensk Innebandy Vill) is to find new target groups and attract more people to the sport. The Floorball Flex project aims to achieve this.

– The Floorball Flex game format is intended to lower the thresholds and increase accessibility to the sport creating lifelong participation in floorball. It differs from the traditional floorball through both simplified rules and more flexible training and competition formats, says Camilla Olsson, Office Manager at Värmland’s Floorball Association.

Floorball Flex has already been tested as a pilot project in Värmland’s IBF, which was the district introducing the idea. Now the Swedish Sports Confederation wants to invest in it and has contributed with SEK 370,000. This ensures that the project will continue in Värmland, where the goal is that at least eight clubs to start practical implementation by February 2021. This means that the clubs implement the Floorball Flex game format in their regular activities and that they include more participants.

– This does of course not mean that we are removing the traditional structure, but rather that we broaden the activities to suit more people. The whole society is getting more flexible in many ways and we have not always kept up with that in sports. Hopefully this can be a way for us, together with the clubs, to offer even more floorball formats in the future and thus also include more people into our sport, Camilla Olsson explains.

– We believe that the Floorball Flex project is a step towards better public health. The sedentary trend among children and youth needs to be broken and we are convinced that Floorball Flex can contribute to that. There are both young and old who are not interested in competition and are generally not familiar with the rules and structures of floorball. These are the ones we hope to reach through Floorball Flex, says Inez Rehn, Swedish Floorball Federation’s Inclusion Manager.

Facts about Floorball Flex

The idea was born when a study at Karlstad University showed that it was difficult to get newly arrived individuals involved with regular activities. The biggest obstacle was not language or ethnicity, but the participants athletic skills and the clubs view of training and competition. Värmlandsidrotten (Värmland’s Sport) and Värmland’s IBF developed the concept together.

There are no requirements to attend training in order to be able to play a match. All training and match events are open to everyone, regardless of age, background, ambition level, experience and competence.

The intention of the Swedish Floorball Federation is that Värmlands IBF will act as a pilot district for the investment during 2020, and then the concept will be launched nationally.

The project runs between February 2020 and February 2021. A Project Manager will be be hired to manage the activities.

Source & more information: Swedish Floorball Federation