IFF Associations Meeting Day 2 – 11.12.2017

The day two of the IFF Associations Meeting was held on the final day of the Women´s WFC in Bratislava. Over 60 participants from 35 countries took part in the day two of the IFF Associations Meeting. The second day of the meeting was opened by IFF Vice President and Czech Floorball President Filip Suman.

Each One – Teach One
The morning started with IFF Operations Coordinator Veli Halonen’s presentation about the Each One – Teach One project.
The Each One – Teach One project was launched in 2014 and it’s based on cooperation of the member associations.
- Be active! Talk with your neighbouring country or contact me if you want to start a project. If you have new ideas and suggestions, don’t hesitate to bring them up, says Halonen and also reminds that it’s important to remember that different countries have different problems.

Tamuz Hidir the President of the Ukrainian Floorball Federation presented the EOTO project they had with the Finnish Floorball Federation.
- For us the organisational issues were the most acute which was a bit difficult to explain to the players at first as they hoped to have more of a playing/coaching perspective with the cooperation.
Ukraine created their own club system and Hidir concluded that the help and example of the Finnish Floorball Federation was really helpful for them.
- The project got us more organised and encouraged us to make changes. We also got a lot of other positive effects for example a few Ukrainian referees will go and referee in Finland and there has also been club co-operation.
According to Hidir it’s important to have clear and realistic understanding and expectations of the areas you want to cooperate on and to be patient.

Western Europe Project

IFF CB Member and President of Floorball Danmark Thorbjorn Ovedal spoke about the Western Europe Project and the 6 Nations Floorball Cup (6NFC). A questionnaire in regards of good governance and coaching was sent out to the nations in Western Europe:
- The ongoing issue was how to get new volunteers and also the certified coaching education system, which is something that we with the 6 nations are now working on, says Ovedal.
He also brought up the seminars that were held in Hungary, Ukraine, Turkey and Slovakia as well as cooperation with the top countries:
- It’s of course important to learn from them and to utilise the ideas they provide, but we want to create our own way of playing and in order to do so we need to have coaches that actually stay in the country and work for long term. That’s why it’s important to get the coaching education up and running.

Referee project

A Singaporean referee BinBin Lin was supposed to present about the referee project run in Singapore and Malaysia, but she was actually refereeing the 7th place match so the presentation was run by Veli Halonen:
- Just go and check the IFF YouTube Channel, you can then already see that the project was a success. We have a Singaporean referee pair refereeing at WFC, Halonen said.
The referee project consisted of cooperation between nations as Malaysian referees were invited to whistle in Singapore and a referee clinic was held in Malaysia twice a year by Head of Referee Sharil Ismail more familiarly known as Rello. Referees from Indonesia and Philippines also joined the clinics.
As Halonen said in the beginning, the project was successful and provides long-term development and ensures high quality matches, education of players and safety of the sport.
- Referee cooperation is also one of the easiest way of cooperation between nations as the referees are an open book. They don’t have secrets and playbooks like coaches, but simply follow the rules and interpretations.

Marketing Floorball

IFF CB Member and Swiss Floorball Federation’s board member Jörg Beer presented the marketing strategy of floorball. First he talked about the past of floorball and its environment as well as the fast development that has happened throughout the years.
- Floorball gets a face all over the world and has created a personality of its own. Easy to play, fast and entertaining, free from doping and violence.
He also raised the question about the difficulty of getting sponsors outside the sport as in today’s world the competition between sports is tough. In the end a brainstorming session was held were the participants got to express their ideas in connection to sponsorship. 

Special Olympics

Mariusz Damentko and Steen Houman from Special Olympics presented floorball’s development in Special Olympics. In 2016 the Special Olympics operated in 40 countries worldwide, had 23870 athletes and 3227 coaches. In the Winter World Games, floorball had the biggest number in participants.
Special Olympics had a kick off seminar in Riga in December 2016 in regards of the Unified projects. They also held a Unified Schoold Floorball Seminar in Graz in March 2017. As a outcome there were 10 projects and equipment distribution in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Belgium, Norway, Cyprus, Hungary, Austria, Malta and Slovakia.
The IFF and Special Olympics cooperate closely and for example the Special Olympics demonstration match has become a tradition in the WFCs.
- It’s important for us to work together with IFF and its nations to share knowledge and expand the sport together with Special Olympics, says Houman.
The IFF values the cooperation highly as we share the common goal of expanding floorball and wishes that the national associations would cooperate with Special Olympics.

Watch the interview with Steen Houman below

New website and match statistics software

The IFF Information and Anti-Doping Coordinator Minna Nurminen spoke about the IFF Website and Match Statistics Software. The new website will be launched in Spring and includes several improvements.

Rules of the Game, 2018 Edition

After Nurminen, IFF CB Member and board member of Swedish Floorball Federation Martin Klabere talked about the Rules of the Game, 2018 Edition and talked about the upcoming changes.
Penalty shot: “The player taking the penalty shot may play the ball an unlimited number of times and shall follow a continuous movement towards the goal cage. Continuous implies that the player and the ball are not allowed to come to a full stop or change direction away from the goal cage simultaneously.”
- At the moment we are looking at millimetre movements of the ball and we are trying to change this, says Klabere
One of the changes was also that when a field player plays the ball with his head the opponent will be awarded a free hit instead of a powerplay. More information about the changes will be informed in the future.

IFF Way of Refereeing

Veli Halonen presented the IFF Way of Refereeing. The basic idea is to unify the rule interpretations internationally. The interpretations will be updated to the IFF educational material not to the rulebook and it shall be ready by the 1st of July.

New Format of Streaming

Vellu Maurola from Striim presented a new format when it comes to streaming matches. Striim is a gamified video media for youth and amateur sports. Its key features include live streaming with scoreboard, team logos, chat and cheer as well as post game discussions plus weekly videos and revenue share with the teams.
- It’s the perfect solution for parents, players, fans, coaches, scouts and referees. Anyone can stream and anyone can watch, says Maurola and continues
- Our values include engaging the youth and fair play. We are going to moderate the discussions in order to keep the discussion proper. We also want to support low income families to participate.

Athletes Commission

IFF Athletes Commission Chair Lidwien Reehuis talked about the Athletes Commission and their goals:
- We want to be more visible and really show to the athletes that we are there for them. We want to represent them and also inform them about relevant matters. We hope to inspire others via our blogs/vlogs and to promote events.

Upcoming IFF Events

Women’s U19 WFC 2018
Michael Zoss from Swiss Unihockey presented the upcoming Women’s U19 WFC.
The Women’s U19 WFC will be played in St. Gallen and Herisau, Switzerland, May 2nd– 6th 2018 with 16 teams. More information on the official WU19 WFC 2016 website: http://www.wfc2018.ch/en/

Official U19 WFC in social media accounts:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/U19WFC
Twitter: twitter.com/U19WFC
Instagram: instagram.com/u19wfc

#u19wfc #floorball

Men’s WFC 2018
Zuzana Svobodova the WFC 2018 secretary general presented the Men’s WFC 2018 via a video presentation which informed about upcoming city tour as well as the goal to sell out the O2 arena twice.

-I believe that even for those countries who don’t make it to the final round, you will also feel that this is also your event. We want to take it to another level and want to affect each country, said Filip Suman the President of Czech Floorball

The Men’s WFC will be played in Prague, Czech Republic 1st-9th of December 2018 with 16 teams. More information on the IFF Webpage.