IKF World Beach Korfball Weekend 2020

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It is time to announce a new korfball community building event: the IKF World Beach Korfball Weekend 2020!

The current corona situation maybe prevents us from organising events where we can meet in person, but it doesn’t prevent us from staying connected as korfball community. To strengthen the connection between all IKF member countries, korfball clubs and individuals, the IKF has decided to launch the IKF World Beach Korfball Weekend 2020.

This ‘event’ is held in the weekend of 29 and 30 August and will be created by everyone together. Combining all type of beach korfball activities in the same weekend. We challenge all korfball lovers over the world to organise a beach korfball activity in this weekend. A tournament, a match, or whatever kind of activity you like to do and show. Just connect your activity with the IKF World Beach Korfball Weekend 2020 and be part of the event!

Let’s be very clear; Safety goes first! So please make sure that you are well informed and always respect the guidelines of the (local) government to avoid spreading the corona virus. Don’t organise activities that can harm the health of yourself or others.

Having said that, the corona situation and imposed limitations are very diverse all over the world and in many countries sport activities, specially outdoors, are allowed and even stimulated. Physical activity or exercise strengthens your immune system and lower the risk of getting sick. And maybe more importantly, doing sports is fun and helps both your body and mind to stay healthy!

Make sure to follow the IKF Social Media Channels to know how you can connect your beach korfball activity. And of course, in the case there is no beach available where you are located, but you still want to be part of the event, you are more than welcome to connect any another kind of korfball activity!

 

Share and follow all the activities using the hashtags #WorldBeachKorfballWeekend and #WBKW2020

Official IKF Beach Korfball profiles: www.beachkorfball.sport, instagram.com/beachkorfball and facebook.com/Beachkor

 

logo_WBKW2020

Vacancy: Chair IKF Development and Education Committee

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The International Korfball Federation seeks applications for the position of

 

Chair of the IKF Development and Education Committee and Member of the IKF Executive Committee

(volunteer position; up to 10 hours per week)

 

The International Korfball Federation’s development mission is to enable anyone in the world to play our mixed-gender team sport whenever and wherever they want. As a mixed-gender sport, we believe in the values of equality and opportunity, while the competitive game is seen as a target to aim for the best possible performance and international participation.

The development strategy for the next quadrennial aims at working with our 40 strongest national organisations among the current 70 members, in order to increase participation numbers, level of competition, and organisational strength. In addition, the remaining 30 young countries need basic developmental support. For this, the IKF, together with key partners such as the national korfball associations of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Chinese Taipei, and with financial assistance from the International Olympic Committee, runs a development and education program. This program is coordinated by the IKF Development and Education Committee.

Responsibilities

The Chair of the IKF Development and Education Committee, within the overall IKF Strategy, operationalises the development strategy and executes the development. Execution includes the administrative running of the program, including matters such as organising the call for project proposals, allocation and monitoring of projects, measuring and reporting on key performance indicators. Furthermore, the Chair leads the DEC team with members from across all continents. Using virtual meetings, the Chair inspires and leads the committee members, en helps them being successful in their continent. Within the DEC, a specific Coaching education team leads the development and innovation of korfball coaching courses worldwide.

Further, the DEC Chair is a Member of the IKF Executive Committee and hence shares responsibility for the overall decision making and management of the IKF.

Duties include:

  • Organising, planning, and monitoring of the IKF Development Program
  • Strategic planning of and reporting on the IKF Development Program
  • Aligning with key stakeholders, such as donors and beneficiaries of the program, and member organisations of the IKF
  • Seeking of funds and applying for grants to enlarge the size and impact of the IKF Development Program
  • Developing the IKF education program, including organising the course calendar, developing online education, and developing a global network of qualified instructors

Requirements:

  • Passion for mixed-gender team sports
  • Global orientation
  • Experience with sports development, ideally in korfball or a similar team sport
  • Excellent communication skills
  • Well-organized and meticulous
  • Advanced level of English, and ideally one or two additional global languages

Benefits:

  • Be part of the future development of korfball, and have a major influence on its course of development
  • Be part of all key decisions of the International Korfball Federation
  • Be able to develop a wonderful network of passionate sports developers across the globe
  • Expenses covered in accordance with the IKF reimbursement policies
  • Invitations to all IKF events

Position

The membership of the IKF Executive Committee is an elected position by the General Meeting of the IKF. Elections will be held in November 2021. Prior to this, the selected candidate will be co-opted as a full member of the IKF Executive Committee. Given the current background of the members in the IKF Executive Committee and IKF Council, candidates from the A-countries (Netherlands, Belgium, and Chinese Taipei) are not eligible for this position.

Following the IKF Statutes, a candidate needs to be (or become) a member of a national organisation that is a full member of the IKF. Associate Members may not propose candidates for the Membership of the IKF Executive Committee.

The position is a voluntary position and does not entail any salary or indemnification. Out-of-pocket expenses are covered insofar as needed to conduct the work.

Information

If you would like more information about this position, please contact the CEO of the IKF, Mr Tilbert La Haye (Tilbert.la.haye@ikf.org), or the Secretary General of the IKF Ms Joana Faria (joana.faria@ikf.org ).

Applications

Applications should include a detailed resume and a motivation letter, and should be sent to the IKF Office office@ikf.org . Review of applications will start on September 15, 2020, and continue until the position has been filled.

World Korfball Update – IKF newsletter

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The IKF has published the first edition of World Korfball Update, a newsletter to keep all korfball fans and national federations informed about IKF news and global korfball news.

The World Korfball Update will be published three to four times a year and features IKF organisational news, tournament flashbacks, interviews, development projects in the spotlight, and much more. You can download the first edition here, or go to www.korfball.sport/documents.

You can subscribe for the newsletter by sending an e-mail to office@ikf.org.

Follow our social media channels to make sure you do not miss any news:

► facebook.com/korfball.org
► twitter.com/korfball
► instagram.com/korfball_org

The Rules of Korfball 2020

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The IKF Playing Rules Committee (IKF PRC) has revised the korfball playing rules with the main goal of simplifying the document by making it shorter, clearer and easier to consult. Furthermore, the IKF PRC has evaluated the multiple korfball rules experiments carried out in the national competitions. This has resulted in a new version of The Rules of Korfball, which are valid as per 1 September.

The Rules of Korfball 2020 are accompanied by a document that outlines the changes made for the new version.

Links to documents: (also available on www.korfball.sport/documents)

– The Rules of Korfball 2020

– The Rules of Korfball 2020 changes

– Exceptions and recommendations for competition regulations

 

Announcement IKF EXCO: European club competitions

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Given the disruption to korfball competition in 2020 and the subsequent stopping of National League competitions before the end of the season, the IKF EXCO has decided to cancel the regular IKF Europa Cup and Europa Shield Competitions for 2021. However, since the members showed a high level of interest in European club korfball next year the IKF has instead decided to create an experimental European club competition for the year 2021: the “European Korfball Tour”.

The primary aim of the experiment is to create a structure in which participating team(s) from all (eligible) European members have the opportunity to increase their level by maximising the possibility to play competitive matches. The secondary aim is to create a more professional and commercially attractive Final Round in which only the best European club teams meet each other.

The European Korfball Tour will consist of three events: two pre-rounds (”the Challengers”) and one final round (”the Finals”). The set-up of this club competition recognises the different standards that exist across countries within Europe.

A total of 22 teams will participate in the European Korfball Tour:

    • The A members, the Netherlands and Belgium, will provide two clubs each directly to the Korfball Tour Finals. These two clubs shall be their (appointed) champion and number two.
    • The B members, Catalonia, Czech Republic, England, Germany and Portugal will provide two clubs each. This shall be their (appointed) champion and number two. Portugal and Germany have their champion directly qualified to the Korfball Tour Finals. Both countries have been selected based on the results of last year’s IKF Europa Cup edition. The remaining eight clubs will participate in the Challengers in such a way that two teams of the same country do not meet at this stage.
    • The C and D members will provide one club each, their (appointed) champion. These are Hungary, Poland, Turkey, France, Scotland, Serbia, Slovakia and Wales. These 8 teams will participate in the Challengers.
    • In a situation that one of the qualified members is not able to provide the required number of teams, the ‘E’ members will have the possibility to provide one club. In this scenario, the choice of member will be based on the current IKF World Ranking.

So, a total of 16 teams will participate in the Challengers. The Challengers will be held 7 – 9 January and/or 14 – 16 January. The winner of each Challenger will proceed to the European Korfball Tour Finals. This will bring the total of participating team in the Finals at 8. The Finals proceeds directly to the cross-final stage with the quarter-finals on Thursday, the semi-finals on Friday and the finals on Saturday. The matchup will be decided by an open draw. The Finals will be played in the Netherlands, from 11 – 13 February

The IKF very much hopes that it will be possible to continue with the European Korfball Tour competition as presented, in order to do justice to the huge interest of clubs and countries in European club competitions. The 2021 European Korfball Tour is a one-year experiment and for now, no decisions of any kind have been taken for the future. Furthermore, this realisation of this decision depends on the finding of tournament hosts for the Challengers and may yet be affected by the development of the COVID-19 situation across Europe.

The deadline for the registration of clubs is 1 August 2020.

Revised IKF Competition Calendar 2021-2023

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The current worldwide corona crisis is having a major impact on the complete sports world and unfortunately, korfball is not an exception. Multiple IKF events already have been cancelled or postponed. Amongst these events are Elite events like; the AKC 2020, the EKC A&B 2020 and the U21 WKC 2020 and the World Games 2021.

While the impact of the cancellations and postponements goes beyond the year of 2020, the IKF had to revise the complete competition calendar for the coming years. This has led to the following major structural changes in the IKF competition calendar for 2021-2023:

  1. For the U21 events, we will move to a World Championship cycle of three years (Continental Championships in 2019, 2022 and 2023, and World Championships in 2021 and 2024). For the U21 WKC 2021 we will keep the same age reference dates as originally planned for in 2020.
  2. Due to having The World Games in 2022, and the European Championships in 2021, we have chosen not to play a European Championship in 2022. This serves to avoid having too many senior events in the same year. A number of teams (exact number to be determined later) in the European Championship A-Division in 2021 will qualify directly for the 2023 World Championship. Should the corona crisis develop next year such that a proper preparation for the European Championship Division-A is not possible, this decision regarding qualification may be reversed.
  3. The remaining European qualification places for the 2023 World Championship will be obtained in one or two European WKC Qualifier(s), to be played in 2022. Countries that have already qualified through the 2021 European Championship, hence are not playing in these Qualifiers.
  4. The European Championships Division-A 2021 and the WKC qualifying event(s) in 2022 will also decide which 14 countries directly qualify for the European Korfball Championship’s in 2024. The remaining two places will be contested at the IKF EKC Round 1 in 2023.

From 2023 onwards, the calendar will revert to the previously decided calendar. To this end, the IKF Exco has awarded the 2026 European Championship to the Czech Republic, due to the fact that the 2022 European Championship will not take place.

The exact continental qualification quota for the 2023 WKC will be determined by the IKF Council before the end of this year.

Here you find the Global Competition Overview and underneath you find the precise competition calendar for the coming three years.


2021 

Event Month Host Status
IKF Europa Cup (?) To be decided
IKF Europa Shield (?) To be decided
IKF U19 & U16 AK4C February Thailand
IKF U19 WKC 2-4 April Czech Republic Confirmed
EKC U15 June ??
KWC U17 June The Netherlands
IKF U21 EKC Round 1 June/July ??
IKF U21 WKC 10-17 July Chinese Taipei Confirmed
IKF AKC August Korea
IKF Beach Korfball WKC August ??
IKF Europa Cup Round 1 September ??
IKF EKC Division-B October Poland
IKF EKC Division A October-November Belgium

* The continuation of the European club competitions is currently examined. Ultimately the 1st of July 2020 a decision will be taken on how to proceed.

* The exact dates of most of the events are waiting final confirmation. Those will be communicated when finalised.

* U21 EKC Round 1: For the European countries that are not qualified for the IKF U21 WKC in Chinese Taipei 2021, the aim is to organise a three days event to qualify for the U21 EKC Final Round in 2022.

 

2022

Event Month Host Status
IKF PAKC January or December 2021 ??
IKF Europa Cup January ??
IKF Europa Shield January ??
IKF AAKC March/April ??
IKF U19 EKC (Open) April ??
IKF Asia U19 & U16 AK4C March/April ??
IKF U21 AOKC May or September ??
EKC U15 June ??
KWC U17 June The Netherlands
IKF U21 EKC Final Round June ??
World Games 13-17 July United States Confirmed
IKF AOKC August ??
IKF Beach Korfball (EU, AS, ?) August/? ??
IKF Europa Cup Round 1 September ??
IKF European WKC Qualifier(s) October/November ??

* PAKC: Depending on the bid of the host country the event will either be scheduled at the end of 2021 or at the beginning of 2022.

2023

Event Dates Host Status
IKF Korfball Champions League Satellite Final 27-28 January Catalonia Confirmed
IKF Korfball Champions League Challenger Final 4-5 February Germany Confirmed
IKF Korfball Champions League Final 10-11 February Netherlands Confirmed
IKF Beach Korfball World Cup (Asia) May
IKF U19 World Korfball Championship 7-9 April Belgium Confirmed
IKF U21 European Korfball Championship June
European Korfball Championship U15* June
Korfball World Cup U17* July
IKF Beach Korfball World Cup (Europe) 25-26 August Poland Confirmed
IKF Korfball Champions League Round 1 September
IKF World Korfball Championship 20-29 October Chinese Taipei Confirmed
IKF European Korfball Championship First Round November
IKF Korfball Champions League Round 2 November
* IKF patronaged event

 

While the effect on the competition calendar is substantial, the IKF Executive Committee believes to have found a reasonable balance between the quality of the international competition calendar, the burden on national federations and athletes, and the feasibility of the calendar given the many challenges that the IKF will be facing over the next few years.

Obviously, the further evolution of the current corona crisis is unclear, and new developments later this year or next year may force us to revise any of the decisions now made.

IKF Athletes Committee Survey

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The IKF Athletes Committee is asking all athletes that have participated at IKF events since August 2019 to give their feedback! The Athletes Committee represents all athletes and advises the IKF EXCO on athlete-related matters. The Athletes Committee wants to know more about your experiences during IKF events and therefore asks you to fill in a survey. This way, the committee can represent all korfball players in the best possible way. All feedback (good and bad) is appreciated!

Click here to go to the survey, completing it will only take a couple of minutes.

Last day to respond: 31st May 2020

You can also contact the IKF Athletes Committee (Jessica May, Ricky Wu & Davesh Patel) on athletes@ikf.org

IKF Social Media Call

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Are you interested to increase the IKF’s social and digital impact? 

If korfball is your passion and you have social media or other digital skills then you can help increase korfball’s global impact by volunteering your time and skills. 

Korfball is growing globally. With close to 70 member countries, korfball is part of many people’s daily lives, and korfball activities take place globally at any time of day. Over the past years, the IKF has built up a considerable presence in social and other web media and is one of the most innovative international federations in this domain. Live scoring on worldkorfball.sport, casting of IKF events on worldkorfball.sport and YouTube, extensive social media coverage of our events on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, a website as a repository of our official documents, and much more. 

The IKF would like to further develop its social media and digital presence. For social media we would like more impact during our events, coverage of other events, and more presence in between events. In terms of information provisioning, we would like to collect and share more of our data and provide interesting graphs, analyses, and social content. We would like to inform interested korfball fans better and in a more personalized way. And of course we are interested to further develop the experience of viewers of our webcasts. 

For this, we would like to put together a pool of volunteers that can help us. These volunteers can be any of the following (but definitely not limited to this list): 

  • Social media writer/producers 
  • Video producer, director, etc 
  • Social media editors 
  • Software developers 
  • Data scientists 
  • Journalists, interviewers, reporters (social and other electronic media) 
  • …. (fill in what you think the IKF and the global korfball community needs) 

If you are interested, or if you would like to know more, please send us an email with your name and contact details.  

Please send your application or expression of interest before 6 May 2020 to the IKF Office: office@ikf.org. For further information contact the IKF CEO Tilbert La Haye: tilbert.la.haye@ikf.org. 

Note: This is a call for volunteers. We do not solicit commercial applications for service provisions. Please refrain from developing any commercial proposal based on this text. 

International Korfball Federation largely cancels 2020 International Calendar (Updated)

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Update 22 April 2020

In alignment with the KNKV, the IKF had decided to cancel the IKF Beach Korfball World Cup (Europe 2020), which was planned for 7-8 August 2020 in The Hague, The Netherlands.

The Dutch government has announced that the ban on (sport)events in The Netherlands has been extended to 1 September 2020, which automatically means that no event can take place in August. The IKF will not look for another date in 2020 for this event.

Although this announcement probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you following the earlier cancelation of IKF events, it is still a sad moment. However, the IKF would like to thank the Royal Dutch Korfball Federation (KNKV) for their preparational work

Update 4 April 2020

In an extraordinary meeting of the IKF Executive Committee, joined by the Vice-Presidents for Asia and Oceania, the International Korfball Federation has decided to largely cancel or postpone its 2020 international competitions. The global spread of the Covid19 epidemic effectively precludes many international competitions to be held, and creates so much financial and organizational uncertainty to hosts and competitors that many decisions to cancel events can no longer be postponed.

The U21 World Korfball Championship (Taipei, TPE), Asian Korfball Championship (Seoul, KOR), European Korfball Championship/A (Antwerp, BEL), and European Korfball Championship/B (Wroclaw, POL) have all been postponed to 2021.

In coordination with the IKF, the Royal Dutch Korfball Association has decided to cancel the U17 Korfball World Cup (Eindhoven, Netherlands), and U15 European Korfball Championship (Drachten, Netherlands). Both events had been patronaged by the IKF.

Decisions with regard to the Beach Korfball World Cup (The Hague, Netherlands) and Asian U16/U19 Korfball Championship (Udon Thani, Thailand) have been deferred to a later date. The qualifying round for next year’s Europa Cup has also been canceled, and the IKF will review the situation for next year’s Europa Cup and Europa Shield in light of the developments of the various national leagues in Europe. Most European countries have suspended their leagues until further notice.

Jan Fransoo, President: “The IKF is very sad having to take this decision, which was inevitable. Foremost, the health and well-being of all athletes, officials and fans is our first priority. In addition, hosts are currently facing high financial risks and we need to enable them to develop contingency plans early on. We are in close contact with our major event organizers and will be in touch with all event hosts over the next few weeks to further discuss the consequences for the 2020 and later events”

This decision, along with the earlier decision of the International World Games Association to postpone The World Games to 2022, will have major consequences for the entire competition calendar of the IKF for 2021, 2022, and potentially 2023. The Executive Committee in its meeting today reviewed all options and will consult with host cities and other stakeholders over the next few weeks. It is expected that the revised competition calendar for the upcoming years will be announced before the end of April. Decisions with regard to next year’s Europa Cup and Europa Shield will be made latest by July 1, 2020. The final decision with regard to the Beach Korfball World Cup will be made not later than June 1, 2020.

 

The World Games in Birmingham (USA) moves to July 2022

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The International World Games Association (IWGA) and Birmingham Organising Committee (BOC) have agreed to postpone the 11th edition of The World Games until 7th to 17th July 2022. The Games had originally been planned to take place from 15–25 July next year.

The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to move the Tokyo Olympic Games to July 2021 made a significant impact on the planning of The World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. Keeping to the original dates in July 2021 would have meant excluding many athletes and officials involved in the Olympics, and would have led to a potential reduction in public and media interest. When the IOC announced its decision, the BOC urgently set about assessing what alternative dates might be viable, particularly as regards venues and accommodation. Meanwhile, the staff of the IWGA were establishing when the vital services provided by key partners, such as SwissTiming and International Sports Broadcasting, could still be made available.

It soon became clear that only one 10-day period existed in which venues, accommodation and key partner support could be guaranteed: 7–17 July 2022. The IWGA Member Federations with sports on the programme gave their full support to delaying The World Games, and the joint decision of the IWGA and BOC Boards to adopt these new dates was unanimously approved by the federations in a video conference.

Jan Fransoo: “The IKF understands and fully supports the decision made by the IWGA and BOC to postpone the World Games until 2022, and has full confidence that the 2022 Games will be a great celebration of sports. With the Olympic Games being moved to 2021this was the most viable option to do justice to the Games in Birmingham. The IKF would like to expresses its gratitude towards everyone involved within the IWGA and BOC for the quick acting after the announcement of the IOC. Having the new dates for the event available creates clarity and enables us to look at the consequences of this decision for the international korfball competions calendar. The IKF Executive Committee will meet within the next few days to discuss the impact of the new dates for The World Games on the IKF competition calendar for 2020-2023. Also other effects of the current corona crisis will be part of that discussion.”

Event info: www.twg2022.com – www.korfball.sport/event/the-world-games-2022