When the Fistball U18 World Championship and U21 European Championship takes place from 23-26 July 2020, the entire fistball world will be looking to Grieskirchen. In the region, this major fistball event will be one of the big highlights of the year.

“It is going to be the fistball event of the year and a celebration for the entire region”, Peter Oberlehner, Vice President of Faustball Austria and at the same time President of the Organizing Committee of the U18 World Championship, sets the goal of the organizer. The club is investing a lot of time and also money to achieve this goal. The existing Fistball Center in Grieskirchen was chosen as the venue. The entire sports facility is currently being made suitable for the World Cup by the club. In order to be able to offer three playing fields in accordance with the rules, the run-out on the previous training field was widened. “In addition, the pitches will all be renovated again so that the young athletes will find perfect conditions. The existing Center Court will be extended by a large temporary grandstand for the World Cup and the existing grandstand will be renovated. This will increase the capacity during the event to around 1,500 spectators,” says Christoph Oberlehner, head of the organisation team for the World Youth Championships. In addition, a large World Cup village will be created, which will offer catering, entertainment and much more for players and fans from all over the world. You can get a sneak preview of the World Cup site with the virtual flight over the World Cup area at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-7NNrj6WaY&t=31s

Record number of participants

On the sportive side, eleven nations from a total of four continents will participate in a Fistball U18 World Championship for the first time. From Europe, in addition to the top nations Germany, Austria and Switzerland, a female team from the Czech Republic, two teams from Poland and a male team from Italy will compete. Brazil, Chile and Argentina will travel to Grieskirchen from South America. For the first time the fistball family can also look forward to a male team from New Zealand and the delegation from India. Among the male juniors, the field of participants has not changed since the last European Championship. Austria, Germany and Switzerland will once again fight for the European crown.

Jörn Verleger, President International Fistball Association (IFA):
“11 nations from 4 continents at the U18 World Championships is an absolute record. This shows the positive development of our sport and is the reward for the efforts we invest in the worldwide spread of fistball. With New Zealand, Poland and the Czech Republic, three newcomers are also taking part in this World Championship for the first time”.

1st Fistball Youth World Championship in Austria

“A strong youth is the basis for a successful future of fistball in Austria. We as the Austrian Fistball Federation are very happy that the first World Youth Championship will now take place in Austria. With Grieskirchen/Pötting we have again an experienced partner who is highly motivated and shines with many creative ideas”, says Fistball Austria Vice President Peter Oberlehner. “The city of Grieskirchen will once again be the focus of a major sporting event, and the entire region has the opportunity to underline its excellent reputation far beyond the city or state borders. The fact that Austria is one of the favourites for the medals at this home world championship and that 5 players from Grieskirchen have the chance to be in the squad of the national team is a very nice extra,” Oberlehner adds.

Statement regarding the current Corona crisis:
The situation is evolving and it is still too early to know whether the virus will be contained or continue to spread. IFA will continue to monitor the situation. Preparations for the IFA events will continue as planned for the time being and until further notice. It is still too early to make a final assessment of the situation.

Picture by Manfred Lindorfer.

IFA is pleased to publish the IFA ball list valid 1 April 2020. Next to the already established balls from Sportastic, Ludwig, Drohnn and HAWE five new balls are added in the list. Sportastic presented a ball version call PREMIUM SERIA A with a different leather and the Italian sportswear manufacturer Erreà Sport – since August 2019 the new teamwear partner of the International Fistball Association – launched its own Erreà fistballs in time for the start of the field season in Europe. Five different Erreá ball types – for men, women, U14, U12 and a particularly light one for beginners under 10 years of age – can soon be ordered according to the Italian company. Adult balls will be available for 64,90 euros and youth balls for 44,90 euros with special discounts up to minus 50 percent for club teams available.

The International Fistball Association (IFA) tested the new Erreà balls according to various criteria at the Institute for Testing Sports Facilities, which also carries out tests for FIFA or the FIVB. Right away, Erreà achieved strong results and very similar to market leader Sportastic in terms of different bouncing tests.

Theresa Spadinger, main attacker for the German Bundesliga club TSV Pfungstadt: “I think it’s great that there is a new ball producer. It shows that our sport is also attractive for companies and it is a very good sign for fistball overall. Finally, I am already excited to feel the ball on my arm and compare it with the other balls”.

“For the sport of fistball, Erreà’s commitment is a great sign. We hope that the worldwide availability of balls and textiles will give a further boost to the spread and strengthening of fistball on all continents. It is particularly pleasing that Erreà has also been able to keep the sales price of all balls very low”, said IFA President Jörn Verleger.

Today IFA celebrates the International Women´s Day. First time ever IFA has elected in 2019 two female Vice Presidents by the IFA Congress in Winterthur. We asked the two elected female Vice-Presidents Dr. Giana Hexsel and Vikki Buston to make a statement on today´s International Women´s Day.

“I can feel that the IFA leadership and at least leading parts of the global Fistball Family really want to make a change regarding the reception of female events and championships. Currently we are discussing in detail if a combination of the Men´s and Women´s World Championships is possible in terms of logistical and financial issues, but telling the truth I very much like that idea”, said Vikki Buston, IFA Vice-President from New Zealand and member of the Working Group “Future of IFA Women´s events.

“It has changed a lot in the last 10 to 20 years. I played Fistball since I was a young girl on all national and international level, but I never reached the World Games as there was no Fistball Women´s event so far. I am so proud that under the leadership of our Honorary President Karl Weiss we succeeded to have an inaugural women´s event at The World Games 2021 in Birmingham/Alabama next year. This is a large step for women Fistball and will inspire young female players” added IFA Vice President Dr. Giana Hexsel from Brasil.

Following the outbreak of COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) in China and the high number of cases across Asia and its spreading to other parts of the world, the IFA Executive Committee discussed together with IFA Vice President and Chairwomen of the IFA Medical Commission Dr. Giana Hexsel the impact of this situation on the upcoming IFA 2020 events e.g. the IFA Fistball World Tour Final (17 – 19 July in Birmingham/Alabama/USA), the IFA Fistball U18 World Championships (23 – 26 July in Grieskirchen/AUT) and the IFA Fistball Women´s World Championships (2 – 7 November in Llanquihue, /CHI).

The situation is evolving and it is still too early to know whether the virus will be contained or continue to spread. For the time being, and until further notice, IFA’s 2020 events will continue as planned. “We are in contact with the local authorities and the local organizing committees and we will continue to monitor the situation. Meanwhile I would like to encourage all the athletes to continue their preparation for the upcoming IFA events”, said IFA President Jörn Verleger after the cancellation of a national Fistball meeting in Switzerland this weekend.

Basic rules to avoid infection are to adopt preventative measures as you would for the influenza virus

https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public:

• Wash your hands with soap regularly and thoroughly (30 seconds) followed by use of disinfectant. This measure is particularly important before meals especially in a buffet style service
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth with your hands
• Avoid close contact with people suffering from acute respiratory infections and stay at least two meters away from infected people or people who are showing symptoms (like coughing)
• Avoid mass gatherings
• Ventilate hotel rooms regularly

We would encourage the Fistball Familiy to refer to the following links for the latest information, which may evolve in response to COVID-19 developments;
• Coronavirus 2019 – WHO
• Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) situation report – WHO
• IOC Statement – IOC Medical and Scientific Director, Dr Richard Budgett, advises on the Coronavirus

IFA will put out additional information as the situation develops.

IFA President Jörn Verleger and Secretary General Christoph Oberlehner used their trip to the German Indoor Fistball Championship in Mannheim, which begins today, to advance the preparation for the IFA 2023 Fistball Men’s World Championship at the same place. In cooperation with the German Faustball League DFBL and TV Käfertal, the legal structure for the World Championship was founded, which should also promote the international work of the IFA.

The talks started with a visit to the CEO Eric Schneidenbach from the service company of the German Gymnastics Federation DTB in Frankfurt to cooperate in marketing and sponsoring matters. The meeting with BUGA 23 managing director Michael Schnellbach and marketing director Kirsten Batzler focused on synergy effects for the Federal Garden Show BUGA, which will also take place in Mannheim in 2023. Topics such as joint ticketing, marketing and events were discussed.

The most important point was the establishing of the new club “Förderverein Faustball²”, a legal structure as basis of the World Championship. The association should be the basis for the preparation of the World Championship, but also support the international work of the IFA. The founding members elected the TV Käfertal chairman Jörg Trinemeier also as the new clubs chairman, who represents the association together with IFA President Jörn Verleger as treasurer. The five-member board also includes Ulli Meiners (Germany), Peter Oberlehner (Austria) and Franco Giori (Switzerland), three representatives of the fistball core markets in Europe, to launch projects for international work in fistball.

“The next step will be the appointment of a voluntary Local Organizing Committee and the establishing of an event company in order to provide legal and tax protection for the preparation for the World Championships,” said Verleger. Since August last year, Trinemeier, Verleger and Oberlehner have been working on the basics for preparing for the World Championship at a weekly jour fixe.

World Championship leaders at Rhein-Neckar TV

In the evening program of Rhein-Neckar TV, Trinemeier and Verleger have been invited to talk to moderator Wolfgang Grünwald and promote the coming German and World Championships.

At its headquarters in Feistritz / Drau, IFA President Jörn Verleger and Secretary General Christoph Oberlehner visited Sportastic HandelsgmbH. With CEO Thomas Stadtler they discussed the cooperation for 2020 and the further developments in ball production and testing.
Sportastic will provide the official balls for the IFA 2020 Fistball World Tour Final in Birmingham (Alabama, USA) and the IFA 2020 Fistball Women’s World Championship in Llanquihue (Chile). “We are delighted that we were able to agree on the continued cooperation with Sportastic in these two important competitions,” said IFA Secretary General Christoph Oberlehner.
The A series model is newly approved for the 2020 season. The following Sportastic models are now approved:
– PREMIUM dry, 350, men
– PREMIUM dry, 330, women / juniors
– Premium FITTED dry, 350-360, men
– Serie A men
– MICRO dry, 350, men
– MICRO dry, 330 women / juniors
– MICRO wet wet, 370 men
– MICRO wet, 330 women / juniors

In the coming year, the IFA ball licensing system will be completely reorganized. The existing ball licenses for all IFA ball partners expire on March 31, 2021. President Verleger thanked Sportastic for the many years of cooperation and showed confidence that Thomas Stadtler with its high-quality ball products will remain one of the outstanding providers of fistballs even under the new licensing system in 2021.

In a three day session Eric Kindler from USFA and IFA Secretary General Christoph Oberlehner visited the venue and discussed with the local Organizing Committee from The World Games 2021 – Birmingham all areas and departments like Sports Competition, infrastructure, TV production, Volunteering, Marketing or Ticketing. Three days full of great meetings and an exciting site visit at the venue. We are looking forward to the World Tour Finals in Birmingham.

“One of the biggest events of our sport is coming to the US and Birmingham has some very unique advantages compared to other cities. You can expect a truly genuine southern hospitality experience and you will be able to enjoy the incredible soul food of the South! Birmingham has a rich history and in some cases not a positive one. The city has embraced it’s past and looked forward to rebrand the city without forgetting some of the things that happened. You can expect opportunities to interact with the people of Birmingham and will find that they have a curiosity for the new sports coming from The World Games.” said Eric Kindler, who is also chairman of the IFA Athletes´ Commission.

“We are very fortunate to be able to have the backing of The World Games brand and can promise one of our best marketing experiences of Fistball ever. We have a few ‘secret plans’ in the works to give the Fistball community a new untraditional environment that could bring in a larger audience to Fistball. We are looking forward to what is to come and are happy to be able to work with individuals that truly are happy to work for Fistball, and really don’t know what Fistball is beforehand. Fistball is family as we know and tradition will continue on with the World Tour Finals in Birmingham, Alabama.” added Christoph Oberlehner, IFA Secretary General.

IFA is pleased to announce that the IFA Board of Directors has decided unanimously to nominate and fully endorse IFA President Jörn Verleger as candidate for the position as AIMS Secretary General during their recent meeting.

The Alliance of Independent recognised Members of Sport (AIMS) was founded in 2009 by the members of GAISF being non-recognised by the IOC. IFA has always contributed to the development of AIMS and put a focus on such support. Since the last elections IFA was represented in the Council by Karl Weiss, IFA President until 2019. The election is conducted end of April.

Jörn was elected IFA President in 2019. The International Fistball Association (IFA) is the global sports association for Fistball, comprised by 66 national federations. From 2015 to 2019 he served as the federations voluntary Secretary General.

In his professional life he is running the Grünwalder Freizeitpark GmbH as CEO, which is a multi sports venue nearby Munich (Germany). As Sports Manager he has been administrating and serving international sport events and sporting networks since more than 20 years, including the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 in the City of Dresden, the FIDE Chess Olympiad Dresden 2008 and several ITTF World Table Tennis Championships (2006, 2012, 2017).

He is a chair of the IWGA Anti-Doping Panel (International World Games Association) and engaged as Anti-Doping-Officer for WFDF, the World Flying Disc Federation a position he also overtook on a voluntary base for the World Minigolf Sport Federation (WMF) until 2019 respectively. Furthermore, he serves as a member of the Parasport Commissions of WSF (World Squash Federation) and WFDF.

On the national level he has been working for the German Sports Youth (dsj), the German Sports Confederation (DSB) and the Bidding Committee for the Olympic Games Leipzig 2012.

He holds a Master degree (Executive Master of Sports Organisation Management, University Claude Bernard Lyon/France) and has completed his studies of jurisprudence with first and second state examination at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany).

While the first tournaments of the new World Tour season are already played, the best 16 teams of the last year have another highlight coming up: The World Tour Final 2020 from July 17th to 19th in Birmingham, Alabama (USA). Birmingham is a very special venue, as next year the city will also host the World Games, where for the first time in the history of the World Games, fistball will be represented by a men’s and women’s competition, which means a huge progress in the development of fistball. The World Tour Finals will serve as a pre-event before this international sports spectacle, in order to make the sport of fistball more widely known in Birmingham and to bring the sport closer to people in the USA as well.

So who are the “glorious 16” who will be competing for the World Cup at this year’s World Tour Final? A total of 8 men and 8 women teams from 3 continents and 6 countries are represented at the big finals. With the winners of the World Tour Final 2019 Pfungstadt and Dennach, as well as Stammheim, Germany provides three strong teams, who will certainly give everything to be at the top again. Neighbour Austria could double the number of participants this year and is sending state champion Nussbach as well as World Tour newcomer Wolkersdorf/Neusiedl to the women’s competition and vice champion Vöcklabruck and the boys from Froschberg to the men’s event. From Switzerland the men and women of the SVD Diepoldsau-Schmitter will travel to the USA. The representatives from Brazil are the women and men from Duque de Caxias and Novo Hamburgo as well as the girls from Sogipa. With Club Manquehue in the women’s competition, another South American team has qualified and host USA is with Swim&Sports Club from New Jersey also represented in the men’s competition.

We can therefore look forward to an exciting World Tour final with the best club teams in the world and are curious to see who will be wearing the fistball crown in 2020.

Today the IFA Board of Directors conducted its 4th meeting since the election in Winterthur (SUI) last year in August.

The International Fistball Association (IFA) is pleased to announce that the Board of Directors has approved Malta Sports For All, the Federacion Boliviana de Fistball and the Uganda Fistball Association as its newest member associations, increasing IFA’s membership to 66 national member associations. “IFA is proud to welcome the new member associations to the IFA,” said IFA President Jörn Verleger.

The board heard several reports from IFA Secretary General Chris Oberlehner about the preparation of the IFA 2020 Fistball Women´s World Championship Chile, the IFA 2020 Fistball U18 World Championship Austria with 19 registered teams, the IFA 2020 Fistball World Tour Final in Birmingham and the IFA 2020 World Tour which lift off this weekend in Chile. The fourth season of the IFA Fistball World Tour starts with a total of 27 tournaments on five continents. A record number of 124 teams will fight for the club-fistball crown and the title of the best team in the world. A total of six new tournament organizers are on the tour calendar for the new season of the IFA Fistball World Tour.

IFA Commissions approved

The Board decided about the composition of several IFA commissions. The IFA Youth Commission is composed by chairman Uwe Schneider (GER), Cory Dahn (USA), Verena Hieslmaier (AUT) and an Under 18 representative, who will be elected by the players participating in the IFA 2020 U18 Fistball World Championships in Grieskirchen (Austria). The IFA Ethics Commission is composed by Petra Huber (Secretary General of the Austrian NPC), Thomas Weikert (International Table Tennis Federation ITTF President) and Julia Govinden (CEO of United through Sports) as chairwomen. As a new commission the board established a Sustainability Working Group and asked all member federations for proposals. The board decided unanimously to sign the Sports for Climate Action Framework and approved the first ever IFA 2019 Sustainability Report

Future of Women´s World Championships

Furthermore, the Board established a working group to prepare a decision if their should be a common men´s and women´s world championships 2023 in Mannheim. Currently there will be the women´s event at The World Games 2021, as well as IFA Fistball Women´s World Championships in 2022 and 2024 as well as a possible women´s event at The World Games 2025 in China.

AIMS Council candidate

Finally the IFA Board of Directors nominates IFA President Jörn Verleger as candidate for the position as AIMS Secretary General. The Alliance of Independent recognised Members of Sport (AIMS) was found in 2009 by the non- IOC recognised members of GAISF. Currently, AIMS has 18 sporting international federations as full members. The AIMS President is the General Secretary of IFMA, Stephan Fox. The AIMS Statutory Ordinary General Assembly will be held on Tuesday 21st April 2020 in Beijing and elect a new AIMS Council following the end of the current council’s term. Currently the former IFA President, IFA Honorary President Karl Weiss IFA represents IFA in the AIMS Council.