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Korfball Congress gives boost to youth competitions and development of korfball4

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More international youth competitions and the introduction of other disciplines; those were the main focus in the discussion on the second day of the IKF World Korfball Congress.

The IKF Competitions Committee proposed a new age structure and extension for international youth competition. While currently the IKF organizes World Championships for U23, and Continental Championships U21, it was decided to align those. Given the rapid developments of players, the U23 and senior championships show so much overlap in team composition, that there Congress showed wide support for replacing the U23 World Championship by and U21 World Championship. In 2016, the last IKF U23 World Championship will be held. Further, in younger age groups there are currently no championships, although the IKF patronizes a long traditions of World Cups for U19 and U16. While the patronizing will remain, the IKF will start with an official U19 World Championship, and with Continental Championships for the U17 and U15 age groups. The formats and starting years will be set by each of the continents. It was agreed that the U15 Championships should have more of a festival nature. Further, the European continent, having the the strongest competitions, intends to open up its U17 and U15 events to team from other continents by invitation.

The second major topic for which the IKF Council received wide support was to develop a new korfball discipline, provisionally denoted as korfball4. This compact format, primarily targeted at outdoor hardcourt competitions, but being defined so flexibly that it can be played both indoor and outdoor, should open up new markets for attracting people to korfball. Extensive ideas for positioning, branding, and rules were brought forward by the delegates that embraced the new initiative. The IKF Council will now form a task force that is expected to develop the concept before the middle of next year, with the first events held in 2015.

At the day’s conclusion, the IKF shared its recent initiatives in the areas of communication and social media. For the latter, a new social media strategy will deliver extended multimedia content as from early 2015.

Dr Jan Fransoo, IKF President, – @korfballpres – spoke in his final words to the Congress of a very successful congress and he thanked all delegates for their valuable contributions: “Your support gives the IKF Council even more inspiration on the way we go”.

Portuguese Federation ready for big challenges

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The Portuguese Korfball Federation FPC, under the leadership of his President Mario Almeida, has an ambitious development program. In their strategy, they aim at giving the sport a national presence. Furthermore, they are about to host two major international events: the IKF Korfball World Congress in October 2013 and the IKF European Korfball Championship in October 2014.
In the past few days, IKF President Fransoo was in Portugal to witness the various developments and preparations. With many projects, the awareness of korfball has been substantially increased. In the project “korfball without frontiers” hundreds of immigrants have been introduced to korfball and are now being integrated into the clubs. Further, as part of a project to involve universities, 600 students took part in a beach korfball event in the sunny Algarve earlier this week. The national teams have been offered full support by the High Performance Center of the Ministry of Sports.
Jan Fransoo met with Alexandre Mestre, Secretario de Desporto (sport minister), to discuss the important position of korfball in his policies. Further, he inspected the SANA Metropolitan Hotel, which will be host to the IKF Korfball World Congress, 24-27 October 2013, in Lisbon. He also visited two of the venues, in Lisbon and Odivelas, that will be host to the 2013 European Championship.

IKF awards Korfball World Congress 2013 to Lisbon (Portugal)

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The Executive Committee of the International Korfball Federation (IKF) has awarded
the hosting of its Bi-annual Korfball World Congress and General Meeting to the
Federacao Portuguesa de Corfebol (FPC). The Congress will be held from 25-27
October 2013 at the SANA Metropolitan Hotel is Lisbon.

The event will consists of two days of Congress meetings that will not only allow all IKF Committees and Continental Confederations to have their annual business meetings, but also a general program on korfball’s status and development, for which general
registration will be possible. The Congress highlight will be a festive dinner for the worldwide korfball community on Saturday evening 26 October. The IKF Bi-annual General Meeting will be held on 27 October. The previous IKF Korfball World Congress and General Meeting were held in 2011 in Shaoxing, China.

IKF President Fransoo is very satified with the Portuguese bid: “This bid
will allow us to take our Congress to a next higher level. We hope to attract
not only the representatives from executive committees of national federations,
and committees from the IKF and our continental confederations. We invite
anybody interested in the worldwide korfball development to register and take
part in the discussions on our future.”

FPC President Mario Almeida: “Portugal is honored by this selection, being sure
that it has all the conditions so that this event will be a milestone in the
development of worldwide korfball. These three days, that will bring
together  representatives of national korfball federations and specialists
of the four corners of the globe, will strengthen the most important
institutional and international relationships, and set important strategic
orientations for the sport. On the eve of the IKF European Korfball
Championship 2014 in Portugal, this event will be a demonstration of the
prestige and potential of our great sport.”

IKF European Korfball Championship 2014

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The next IKF European Korfball Championship (IKF EKC) is awarded to Portugal from October 24th till November 2nd 2014 in Lisbon and Odivelas. We wish the Excecutive Committee of the Federacao Portuguesa de Corfebol (FPC) a lot of success to organise an excellent event and many very successful site events to promote korfball in Portugal.

Sixteen national teams will participate. The Netherlands is the reigning champion since 2010.