ISPO Floorball Village -A new sport takes over
A new sport? Not really. Floorball has been organized for the last 25 years in the “International Floorball Federation“ IFF, headquartered in Sweden. The founding members from 1981 were Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland. Today there are 39 national associations all over the world, 300,000 licensed Floorball players, and close to 1.8 million amateur players in more than 20 countries.
Of course, these numbers do not turn Floorball into a global mass sport, yet other statistics are quite impressive: in Sweden, Floorball, known also as Unihockey (Germany, Austria), Innebandy (Sweden) or Salibandy (Finland), is the second most popular sport after football. In Finland it is number three after football and ice hockey.
Just as popular is this team sport in Switzerland, China, Thailand, Australia, Canada, Serbia,
Croatia, Portugal, and Turkey.