European Floorball International League (EFIL) - New Competition Structure
While the IFF event structure announced in 2025 offers administrative efficiency, it presents three fundamental challenges that conflict with IFF's development goals:
Lower-ranked teams, new members, and returning associations face four-year gaps between official events if they underperform, severely limiting their ability to develop competitive programs and retain player engagement.
The top 12 teams maintain automatic qualification through a closed cycle, preventing talented emerging teams from accessing higher-level competition and creating a structural ceiling that discourages investment in development programs.
The European Challenge requires hosting 12+ teams, but most capable hosts are in the top 12 tier, creating a hosting bottleneck that may further restrict participation opportunities as membership grows.
Solution: This proposal introduces a European Nations League system that addresses these issues by providing regular competitive opportunities, merit-based promotion pathways, and smaller, more accessible hosting requirements.
Current System
New Proposal
Current System
New Proposal
Every two years, a round of games is played on any International weekend.
Exception on World Trophy year, teams participating in the World Trophy will not have a EFNL game that year instead the World trophy will act as a EFNL round.
To register, teams must commit to hosting a four-team event (one training day and three competition games). This requirement solves the issue of finding hosts and ensures that all teams are committed to the event.
Registered members are divided into groups based on current European Floorball Ranking
Groups of four are created as long as there are enough members, if a group becomes less than three one member from group above is moved to create two groups of three.
Each round is considered a European Floorball Ranking round, for each group the first place team is promoted to the next league, and the last place team is demoted.
European Floorball Nations League, European Floorball Championship, World Trophy and World Floorball Championship all affect the European ranking for all teams.
After promoting and demoting teams each team gets the rank according to the position they have in their group.
European Floorball Championship: Ranking is based on result in competition, top team is ranked 1 and bottom team is ranked 12 in Europe.
European Floorball Challenge: Ranking is based on result in competition, top team is ranked 13 and bottom team is the minimum rank based on how many teams are in the competition.
Top team is promoted to the lowest team in their new league. Bottom team is demoted rank of the highest team in their new league.
Ranking is based on result in competition, top team is ranked 1 and bottom team is ranked 12-15 in Europe depending on the number of European teams participating.
Ranking System Benefit:
Qualification for the European Floorball Championship and European Challenge is based on the most recent ranking round.
Team 1-12: Qualifies directly to the European Championship
Team 13+: Qualifies directly to the European Challenge
New and returning members:
A few examples of scenarios that can occur, in some cases unlikely but theoretically possible
A low-ranked European team that underperforms in the European Challenge
Result: An underperforming low-ranked European team receives opportunities to compete in official IFF ranking events only every four years.
Result: An underperforming low-ranked European team receives opportunities to compete in official IFF ranking events every two years minimum.
A low-ranked European team experiencing a generational shift with highly motivated and talented players
Result: A team with a new generation of talent gains higher-level competitive experience six years earlier in the new system.
A top-8 ranked European team with an aging roster and a declining or non-existent youth development program
Result: The new system places teams at an appropriate competitive level faster based on their team's performance.
A top-four ranked European nation experiencing significant adverse circumstances
Result: When an established team experiences a temporary decline, recovery is two years faster in the proposed system.