The value of a korfball congress

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Every two years the korfball countries assemble for the IKF World Korfball Congress and the IKF General Meeting. All 59 IKF member countries are invited to participate.

On 25, 26 and 27 October 2013 around 50 people will be in Lisbon, Portugal for the 2013 edition.

In advance we want to thank the Portuguese Korfball Federation for their bid to host this event and for the work done in the period so far to make it a success.

The previous Congress and General Meeting was in Shaoxing, China in November 2011 and the next one will be in Antwerp, Belgium  at the end of October/beginning of November 2015. In 2011 and 2015 these meetings are scheduled in the same period as the IKF World Korfball Championship. In 2013 the delegates meet without a korfball event, as they did in 2009.

In 2011 the IKF restructured its organisation. The on-going growth of the number of member countries was the base for this restructuring. The IKF founded five Continental Confederations; IKF Africa, IKF Asia, IKF Americas, IKF Europe and IKF Oceania. The goals are to give better and more intense support to the respective countries in the continent present and to support an increase the number of member countries in the continent in a controlled way. Points of great attention for the Continental Confederations are support to: increasing the level of play, participation in continental korfball events for all age groups, strengthen the national organisations to secure their existence in a national presence, increase the number of players, share information between countries in the same phase of development, make them all aware that korfball is an external oriented sport for spectators, media as TV and Internet and social media. Furthermore the 2011 General Meeting gave a  ‘green light’ for the IKF strategic plan 2012 – 2015, and now we are half way that 4-year period.

What is the value of these meetings?

The IKF Council and the IKF Committees are committed to work on the tasks extracted from the IKF Strategic Plan 2012 – 2015. They are ambitious but realistic unless proven later to be unrealistic!

The Congress in 2013 concentrates on 2-way exchanges of opinion. The IKF Council wants to listen to the ideas and suggestions of the member countries’ delegates. We have further developed plans and want to ‘measure’ if our work is in line with the developments in the countries. These things have to match. We are bound to work together towards the big goal; the Olympic dream.

Besides the official congress meetings there is great added value to the informal sessions between delegates on all sorts of korfball related items; how can we learn from each other, how can we exchange ideas, how can we improve korfball in our local environment? And make new friends!

All together we have many more answers than each individual would have.

The big challenge should be that each of the attendees will leave Portugal and go home with two new ideas and suggestions.

Frans Walvis

IKF Senior Vice-President

Czech team on intense preparation programme

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Directly after the Extra Czech league final in May, players from the the Czech Republic’s top clubs were selected for the Czech national korfball team and began preparaing for the World Games in Cali.

Former international player Ivo Kracik is now coach of the team, which has a schedule of five weekend training camps, consisting of 15 training sessions and 10 friendly matches. Two of the camps will take place in the Netherlands, where the Czech team will play matches against local clubs and the German national team. One of the training weekends in Czech will also host the Dutch U21 national korfball team.

Playing so many preparation matches, against so many different opponents, will be a first for the Czech squad, which Ivo Kracik hopes will give his players more self-confidence and improve their performance in their early World Games matches.

Czech national squad members include a mix of experienced and young promising players. One of the players, Klara Zabojova, will play in her third World Games, while team mate Denisa Kolarova is only 16 years old and playing in her first big event.

Coach Kracik says the goal for the team is to return to Europe as number three, though concedes that winning the bronze medal will be a tough task.

The Czech team’s participation in Cali is thanks to financial support from the Czech national Olympic committee (COV) and Ministry of Education and Sports.

COV has put in place a four year support programme leading up to the World Games of 2017 in Wroclaw, which is near the Czech Republic border, and which COV expects will attract considerable interest from the Czech sporting public.

Belgium on a mission in Cali

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Being selected for the Belgian national korfball team (known as the Diamonds) is not a matter of preparing for single events every x years. All top players and upcoming talents are closely followed on a day-to-day basis by our technical and medical staff and this with a long term strategy in mind. They become part of a team that will compete at every occasion, aiming at the best possible result and that’s being the number one team. splt0612

The group of athletes preparing for the World Games 2013 in Cali increased its training effort as of March this year after the Belgian Topleague final. Four to five training sessions a week became their ‘new normal’ : physical training by Athletes Care Antwerp, specific korfball training, test matches and individual conditional trainings on top of that.

Thanks to the support of the Belgian Olympic and Interfederal Committee (BOIC), the Diamonds have the necessary resources to prepare for and to participate at the World Games in Cali. Thanks to the effort of several people we have the opportunity to compete against some other World Games participants (Chinese Taipei and Germany) in a pre World Games Tournament which will take place in Antwerp (Belgium) in the week prior to the departure for Cali. Fourth participant to this event will be the U21 selection of The Netherlands.

The Belgian delegation will consist of mature players and talented youth, finalists at the IKF U23 World Championships in Barcelona last year.  Captains of the Diamonds are Davor Duronjic and Annelies Vandenberghe who both have a lot of international experience and have been part of the team for many years now. They will make sure that all the Diamonds will go for the extra mile : one team, one mission!

Double korfball’s presence in the media

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The IKF has 59 member countries all over the world. In the next few years the IKF is committed to growing the number of countries where korfball is played in a controlled way.

The 2012 / 2015 IKF strategy states a target of 65 member countries by 2015. IKF’s Development and Education Committee is working hard to achieve this, in combination with the five Continental Confederations.

The marketing challenge is to increase our presence in the media.

Distribution channels for korfball

Media channels and options are numerous: printed papers, magazines, Korfball International, TV, YouTube, korfball on YouTube sports channel, radio and websites, plus social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedlin and Hyves. In addition, each member country has its own local media in its own language, which multiplies korfball’s potential presence in the media by a factor of 59!

Yet another multiplier is the number of clubs, universities and individual players in the 59 countries. We have at least 250,000 players all over the world: men and women who play korfball.

This combination of members, including countries and players in these countries, is our available set of distribution channels all over the world.

Content

All distribution channels have a constant need for content. They need to fill pages in newspapers, in magazines, in Korfball International, minutes in TV programmes, webcasting on the ikfchannel with YouTube, interviews on radio, news items on websites, on social media.

Regular good quality content is the most effective way to attract attention.

What motivates me to read, listen, or look for news, information, films and recordings?

IF I EXPECT TO FIND SOMETHING ATRRACTIVE AND NEW, THAT DELIVERS ME ADDED VALUE.

It is our task to deliver daily korfball news, with added value.

If every IKF member i.e. every korfball player, delivers one news item per day, we would have a massive pile of attractive news for distribution through local channels and through the IKF’s channels.

This contributes heavily to our goal to increase awareness for korfball worldwide, and it also supports our presence in the media. More content means more presence in the media, so we can double our media presence.

If all korfball players contribute to delivering news, the IKF will easily double our presence in the media.

Frans Walvis

Korfball around the globe: Albert Vidanya

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You have ambitious plans to develop korfball globally, please enlighten us with your plans!

After last congress held in China during IKF World Korfball Championship 2011, was presented the next challenge for IKF: to be present in the Olympic Games. It will take some years to become an Olympic sport, but at least we need to target the numbers we want to achieve to start making this objective feasible:

  • 75 recognized national organizations in 2023;
  • 65 active countries;
  • 50 countries with national championship;
  • 45 countries entering 2015 IKF World Korfball Championship qualification;
  • 55 countries with active youth policy.

From the side of the “Development and Education Committee” our goal is to give support to many young korfball communities, in order they become more stable. Therefore we give them many kinds of support: equipment, clinics, contacts with coaches, teams which can go on tour for trainings… with the condition they must set up plans and to build up some structure .

How close are we to olympic recognition?

We will be closer to Olympic recognition if the numbers mentioned as IKF targets are accomplished and there are more teams than the regular ones, as contenders to be in the IKF World Korfball Championship final.  So these are not easy targets let’s say, but there is potential to make both things happening, and also IKF and both KNKV and KBKB, share the same vision about the need to make this happen.

Who will be world korfball champion in 2030?

Hopefully non an European team. On the other hand I would be much happier if half of the ten first teams at the final ranking are not European and at least one is from Africa or South America. This would mean that korfball will maintain constant evolution around the world apart from Europe, bringing new national organizations to challenge the ones are used to be at the top of the ranking.

What other countries are developing fast?

In terms of development there are two different spheres; one is the sphere of the starting korfball communities pretending to become stable national organizations. They are in the first part of the process, were a stable korfball community needs to be set up. In this part of the process the national organizations which look very well in terms of potential are Morocco, Ukraine and Argentina; to mention three different new korfball communities in different continents.

Another sphere of development is where national organizations try to grow from a lower level to a higher level in terms of IKF status, ranking and competitiveness. These organizations are adjusting their reality to make strong and ambitious plans, so they need some institutional support, some regular funding and key persons in the management of the federation as well as coaches who can lead the national team performance to higher ranked positions in official tournaments.    In these terms China, Turkey and India have ambitious plans. I presume their goal will be to enter the top ten in next IKF World Korfball Championship in 2015.

How can korfball players around the world help korfball grow?

Specially top korfball players with coaching skills are appreciated, when they like to travel around the world and they are available to give clinics. In terms of cooperation with young korfball communities, we have a long list of backpackers in Asia, Australia or South America who contact us through our Facebook page: “Korfball Development IKF”, and say they are looking forward to cooperate giving some clinic to young players or just participating as referees in a tournament or a match.

 I personally endorse this way of travelling: you get in touch with a korfball community in the other side of the world and you become part of it for some days; if you are open-minded and you like to travel to become a citizen of this community for some days, more than just a tourist, it is so rewarding for both sides: they receive some korfball knowledge and you receive some life-experience.

What makes korfball development so important?

On my opinion, IKF needs to challenge continental federations to develop new national organizations and to feed the existing ones to become more stable. As there is the “TOP 6 Program”, sponsored mainly by KNKV, that pretends to raise the level of performance of the B national teams to the highest level , there should be another program taking care of the development of national organizations that can grow from lower levels step by step. This is the portfolio of the “Development and Education Committee”, and together with continental federations we need to find the tools can develop the structure of small korfball communities in order to become stable national organizations, before they try to reach higher goals.

At the same time, our work is to implement the competitiveness of some areas where we find several countries with potential to grow. If we act collectively within several countries in the same area, our efforts will be more productive, and the level of recognition of our sport will grow much more.