IFF Member Associations´ Meeting Day 1 Summary – 11.12.2015

The International Floorball Federation held its Associations´ Meeting during the World Floorball Championships 2015 in Tampere, Finland.

The IFF President Mr. Tomas Eriksson opened the meeting and greeted the 30 attending member associations welcome to the 3rd Member Associations´ Meeting:

-  The road of floorball has been very successful so far. But now we need to be an even more active partner of the International Sports Community in order to take the next steps. In addition, we need to focus on closing the gaps between the existing countries, both on and outside the field of play.

The start of the first day of the meeting touched upon the IOC Road Map and International Lobbying. All participants also congratulated the Finnish Floorball Federation for its 30th Anniversary.


Finnish Floorball Federation President Mr. Ismo Haaponiemi & IFF President Tomas Eriksson celebrating FFF 30 years

International Lobbying

The Member Associations´ 1st brainstorming session included discussion about international lobbying and the needed actions. The breakout groups came up with the following international lobbying actions:

Contacts & cooperation essential
Meet and greet with the embassies, look for contacts to IOC members, establish cooperation projects with indoor sports or other sports to achieve more visibility and power, work together with big companies, have the sport presented at for example big stores as children´s activity, find good Floorball Ambassadors who can promote the sport, approach multisport clubs, start closer cooperation with other floorball federations.

Floorball Presentations & Visibility is the key
Presenting the sport to local authorities and taking part in the activities within the community, participating in any local or regional event that has media visibility, school clinics for teachers and pupils, utilising the players to showcase floorball, get into sport channels and TV shows, utilise social media and create campaigns, launch an international floorball day with floorball demonstrations worldwide.

Multi-sport Events

Floorball is on the programme of the Wroclaw World Games 2017. The playing dates are July 27th - 30th 2017 and the games will be played in the WKK Arena that takes 1200 spectators.

Six men´s teams, based on the WFC 2016 results will play in the World Games 2017:
Top 3 placed countries in WFC 2016
Best ranked neighbouring team to Poland (based on WFC 2016 results)
Top ranked non-European team, if ranked among top 12 (baed on WFC 2016 results)
Host nation – Poland

- Attending the multiport events might in the future effect the format of the game being played, In the World Games in Wroclaw we will play with the regular format, but the size of the teams will be smaller with  only 14 players and a coach in one team, IFF Secretary General John Liljelund informs.

There was a discussion about how each federation could promote the Multi-sport games such as the World Games. The IFF Member Association agreed to promote the event through their associations´ communication channels to create more awareness.

New IFF License System

In 2008, the IFF General Assembly approved the introduction of a License System for participating nations in IFF Events. Since then, the IFF Central Board and relevant IFF Committees have been discussing and developing the best way in which this system can be implemented.

The Associations´ Meeting participants discussed the License System and its strengths and weaknesses. The participants thought that more efforts need to be put in communicating and following up the license system in order for it to act as an effective guiding tool.

The License System could, when implemented successfully, create standards what to work towards, which can help floorball to grow. The meeting participants also stressed that the different stages of development in the Member Associations need to be taken into account. The IFF also needs to make sure that the License System follows the same path as the IFF IOC Roadmap.

The decision of the IFF License System 2.0 will finally be taken by the IFF General Assembly in 2016.

Cities as Event Partners

Mr. Perttu Pesä, the Director of the Major Events Office in the City of Tampere, presented how cities look at organising international sport events.

Sport events can lift the profile of the city. Sport and culture are also important factors to attract people to the city.  International events can also give the cities a stronger international role and the events can be boosters for the local economy.

Much of the support for organising sport events comes from the municipalities, so what do the cities look for?

- The city wants economical impact by hosting your international tournament and to utilise the brand image of the sport. Nowadays sport organisations with a doping and corruption free status and for example a green event brand are also becoming more important partners, Mr. Perttu Pesä informs.

The social impact and the visibility aspect are also of importance for the cities. The events can for example be a trigger for getting better sport facilities.

More on the IFF Member Associations´ Meeting will be published on the IFF website under Meetings soon.

Photo: Jussi Saarinen/IFF WFC