The IFF floorball family now has a total of 73 members when the Kuwait Floorball Committee (KFC) was approved by the IFF Central Board (CB) as the newest IFF member association. The IFF CB also discussed the working process for the IFF Strategy 2021-2032 and welcomed a new member, Ms. Kaarina Salomaa, to the IFF CB.

In addition, all the testing events for the Future of Floorball were presented and approved by the IFF CB.

Kaarina Salomaa new IFF CB Member

Mr. Eriksson started the meeting by thanking the former IFF CB member Mr. Kimmo Nurminen for all his work done for international floorball. Mr. Nurminen resigned from the CB in writing on the 8th of June 2019. Mr. Eriksson also informed that the Finnish Floorball Federation Central Board had already earlier decided to name a successor and after receiving Mr. Nurminen’s resignation the Finnish Floorball Federation had handed in the proposal for a replacement just before the meeting.

The IFF CB approved the Finnish Floorball Federation’s proposal to replace Mr. Nurminen with Ms. Kaarina Salomaa. Ms. Salomaa is a former international level player, national team manager (U19 and Women) and former IFF Competition Coordinator. Ms. Salomaa is also presently the chairperson of the Finnish Floorball Federation competition committee.

Kuwait new IFF member

The Kuwait Floorball Committee (KFC) applied for IFF membership in June 2019.

Mr. Fahad Raed Alkhamees is the President of the Kuwait Floorball Committee, which was founded on the 13th of February 2019. The KFC headquarters are based in Safat. There are currently 40 floorball players in Kuwait. One of the future goals of the association is to participate with a national team in international tournaments.

The IFF CB approved the Kuwait Floorball Committee (KFC) as IFF provisional member no 73. The KFC will also become the 16th member of the Asia Oceania Floorball Confederation (AOFC).

Testing events for the Future of Floorball

The new floorball format with less players and the playing time of 3 x 15 minutes will be tested both in future IFF events and nationally. The IFF asked its member associations to send in proposals of what to test in 2019-2020 and how the test shall be conducted. The IFF CB approved following member associations application to Future Floorball testing during the season 2019-2020:

Czech Republic: Czech Cup Women, 3×15 minutes

Great Britain: Group matches of the UK National finals 3×15, 5 min. intermission and 33x18m field

Finland: Finnish Cup, 3×15 min., 17 players + 5 officials

Korea: President Cup 2020 to be played with 3×15 min and 18 players + 5 officials

Switzerland: Possibly Swiss Cup and Junior series (final confirmation still to come)

The 6 Nations Cup (DEN, GER, LAT, NOR, POL, SVK): 3 ×15 min. (even though no application)

In addition, the following EuroFloorball Challenge 2019 (if organised) will be an IFF test event and the RACC will prepare a proposal of other test events in 2020 and 2021 in its meeting in the end of September.

IFF Events

EuroFloorball Cup 2019

The EFC 2019 will be played in Malacky, Slovakia, October 9th – 13th 2019. The EuroFloorball Cup is the championship tournament for the 5th and lower ranked European national club champions.

Women’s WFC 2019

The 12th Women’s World Floorball Championships will be played December 7th – 15th 2019 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. The first TV arrangements have been made with the TV producation company PolarHD. There will be 6+2 cameras in the main arena and 3+2 cameras in the 2nd arena and TV negotiations are ongoing with Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Due to requests made by TV the WFC 2019 match schedule will change. The updated match schedule will be published during the upcoming days.

Visit the WFC 2019 website here.

Champions Cup 2020

The Champions Cup 2020 – Final Four will be played in Ostrava, Czech Republic, 11th to 12th of January 2020 and the invitation has been sent to all teams. The Champions Cup will be played with the current “final four” format until 2022 and the IFF CB has already started the process of evaluating the format and to possibly create a new format for the Champions Cup in the future.

Visit the CC 2020 website here.

Men’s WFC 2020

The 13th Men’s World Floorball Championships will be played 4th – 12th of December 2020 in Helsinki, Finland. A total of 35 IFF member associations have registered to the Men’s WFC 2020. The European qualifications are planned to be played in Denmark, Slovakia and Latvia with eight teams each (two groups of four) and that three teams will qualify from each of these qualifications (in addition to Finland directly qualified as the organiser). The AOFC (Asia & Oceania) will have four qualifying spots.

Women’s U19 WFC 2020

The 9th Women’s U19 World Floorball Championships will be played 6th – 10th of May 2020 in Uppsala, Sweden. A total of 19 IFF member associations registered to the Women’s U19 2020. The WU19 WFC 2020 qualifications will be played in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy, with five teams: Russia, Hungary, Austria, Netherlands and Italy.

Read more about the WU19 WFCQ here.

Other Events

The IMGA European Master Games will be played in Turin, Italy in July. The age categories in floorball are ranging from 35+ to 50+ in the men’s category and in the women’s category the age groups are 30+, 35+ and 40+. Floorball will be played in four different venues, between 31st of July and 3rd of August and the deadline to register has been changed to June 30th 2019. Read more here.

Floorball is included on the 30th South-East Asian Games to be organised in November-December 2019. The floorball tournament is planned to be played from the 27th to 30th of November 2019. Read more here.

The FISU has informed that the Floorball WUC 2020 will be played from the 4th to 8th of August 2020, in Koper, Slovenia.

IFF Strategy 2021-2032

The IFF has started the process of renewing the IFF Strategy for 2021-2032. The aim with the strategy process is to create a more operational strategy for the whole floorball community. The focus will be on setting the future direction for the IFF and to specify the main objectives that are needed in order to grow and develop the sport on the local, national and international level.

The working process for the new IFF Strategy will start in autumn 2019 when a Task Force consisting of IFF CB members, Member Association representatives, other stakeholders and the IFF office, will be elected. The IFF strategy will also be on the agenda of the IFF Associations Meeting in December. The IFF CB will then prepare the final version of the IFF Strategy for the IFF General Assembly by the end of September 2020.

Development

A referee clinic was organised in Singapore, April 25th – 28th 2019. There were 26 participants from the following AOFC countries: India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. The referee development in the AOFC area has been very positive and the referee clinics are planned to be organised on an annual basis in the future.

IFF is building a new concept together with the Sport Insitute Eerikkilä and the Floorball Academy (FBA) for the countreis rnaked 5th – 10th the the theme “Prepare for HEL”. This concept includes coach education for the national team coaches, coach educator training and tactical game components. The IFF will present the new concept to the floorball countries during June 2019.

IFF is also considering the option to build together with the Kisakallio Sports Insitute a general Floorball Coach Educational programme from Basic to Expert level for the China Floorball/China Hockey Association.

A coaching seminar will also be organised in connection with the six nations floorball challenge that will be played in Nowy Targ, Poland.

GAISF Good Governance survey

GAISF has together with the I Trust Sport Foundation executed a shorter Good Governance survey with the ARISF and AIMS members of GAISF. The IFF received a score of 58 (out of maximum 80) and this was the 5th best score (out of 54 in total). According to the survey outcome, the IFF still needs to improve its financial transparency, evidence of key policies, internal control, conflict of interests, term limits and the gender balance in boards.

New Material Regulations

The IFF CB approved the updated versions of the IFF Material Regulations. The biggest change in the regulations concerns the marking of grips for floorball sticks and the requirement to have the same branded grips as the stick from 1st of July 2020, with a one year transfer period. The new Material Regulations will be available on the IFF website under Rules and Regulations soon.

The Minutes from the IFF CB meeting will be published on the IFF website in the upcoming days. You can find the CB meeting minutes here.