IFF President Foreword WFC 2017 – 30.11.2017

Dear Floorball friends,

Welcome to the World Floorball Championships, the 11th edition for the Women. This December 2017 we turn our eyes towards Slovakia and the beautiful capital city of Bratislava. Slovak Floorball Association has staged many good Floorball events over the years, and Slovakia is a country that has understood and undertaken the good strategy to organise many international Floorball events, in order to promote and grow on the national level. Floorball in Slovakia is constantly growing and has good development.

16 teams are fighting over medals and fame, and for the historic first time we greet heartily welcome two newcomers, that is Estonia and Thailand, representing two continents that are really expanding and growing fast. Good luck Estonia and Thailand!

During the WFC, IFF is organising the Associations Meeting. Vital topics on the agenda are amongst others “Need for Improvement – What to do with the WFC’s?”, “Values of the Future WFC’s and ideas of how to change”, and “The need for changes in the International Competition Calendar”. IFF urge all associations to actively take part since this has impact on all of us.

Floorball has taken important steps forward, in order to reach our Vision 2020 and ultimately a place in the Olympic Games. With the IOC President, Mr Thomas Bach, we see in his vision “Olympic Agenda 2020”, a lot of initiatives, including possible rotations of sports on the Olympic program, and hence the “upgrading” of the World Games. Floorball entered again the World Games this edition in July 2017 in Wroclaw in Poland, and it was a huge success for us as a Floorball family, and it was definitely a huge step, our next step! In Wroclaw we really went public, on all levels and communicate the important values that Floorball possess, showcasing Floorball with many spectators, the last three days were sell-outs. We also had extra promotion in the city, we organised demonstration and urban Floorball in the city and hence successfully reached out to the public in general and to the youth in particular. Floorball was one of the widest broadcast sports and all matches were streamed. Floorball was also one of the best organised events during the games when it comes to atmosphere with many foreign supporters present. We are now deeply evaluating the World Games in Poland in order to secure our spot in the next 2021 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, USA.

The IFF, with all participating teams, convey our gratitude to the city of Bratislava, the Slovakian Government and the Slovak Olympic Committee, and the Slovak Floorball Association, wishing you full success with the WFC.

On behalf of the entire Floorball family, I greet all the participants; athletes, officials, volunteers, spectators, sponsors and co-operating partners and the representatives of media, heartily welcome to the 2017 World Floorball Championships, and wish you all good success!

Looking forward to thrilling matches!

Tomas Eriksson
IFF President