- The goal is probably still there, but you have to be realistic. Today's Olympic Games are 10500 beds and right now under 150 beds are allocated the four new sports that will be in Paris 2024. Since the same system will be applied to Los Angeles 2028, the likelihood that floorball, which is a team sport, has a chance small.
It is the international floor association's (IFF) secretary general John Liljelund's view on the floor's status vis-à-vis the Olympic Games.
Especially in the number of TV viewers, the sport is growing, but overall you are still a bit from the real finrooms. One constant question is how to reduce the differences between major nations such as Sweden and Finland and other countries. As an example of the ongoing World Cup in Swiss Neuchatel, Sweden's quarter-final victory with 26-2 over Germany can work.
- It's a problem, but nobody says anything when Germany beats Brazil 7-0 in football and that is perhaps a bigger difference, says Liljelund and continues:
- There has been a change, but when the development in the big countries goes very quickly, there is no real chance that the countries below could catch them.
To make the sport bigger, you are currently reviewing its design in the form of, among other things, tournament format and how the matches should look. They are also trying to get more practitioners in more countries.
The ongoing World Cup will, in terms of audience, be the second largest in the women's era after Ostrava / Brno 2013. One problem has been that the main hall has been the rather worn Patinoires du Littoral which takes 4,000 spectators.
- They have made a political choice to use the women's World Cup to spread the sport to the French-speaking part of Switzerland and then this is the hall available. It is always the local organizer who makes the choice where to play, says Liljelund.