International Federation of American Football
The International Federation of American Football ( IFAF ) is the world governing body for American football, headquartered in La Courneuve, France.
History
Although American football is a typical American sports, he exerted in over 50 countries around the world. In order to focus the global activities outside of the U.S. professional leagues, the NFL and NFL Europe, was founded in 1998, the IFAF. In the same year founded the International Football Federation ( IAFF ) is a second world governing body. After the first World Cup in 1999, merged in 2000 at a conference in Paris, France both associations to the International Federation of American Football.
Members
There are currently 62 national football associations in four continental federations members of the IFAF. For Africa, there is still no continental federation.
- Africa Member (1): Nigeria.
- Members (6): India, Japan, Kuwait, Mongolia, South Korea and Thailand.
- Members (33 ): Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey, Ukraine, and Belarus. Georgia is a member on time in EFAF but no IFAF member.
- Members (19): Argentina, Bahamas, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Cayman Islands, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela and the United States.
- Members (3): American Samoa, Australia and New Zealand.
Tasks
The IFAF strives American football outside of America to make not only known, but to obtain that football is internationally recognized as a sport. In the medium term to ensure that football is an Olympic sport.
In addition to other international competitions organized especially the IFAF American Football World Championships.
Achievements
In addition to the success to have ever launched a joint World Association into being, the first visible success was the 1999 World Championships in Palermo, Italy, and in 2003 in Hanau and Wiesbaden, Germany, from which the team Japan emerged respectively as world champion.
A milestone was reached when the IFAF has been included in the recognized by the IOC General Association of International Sports Federations ( GAISF ). Only after this step, the next step was possible to apply to participate in the World Games. At the World Games 2005 in Duisburg, Germany, the NFL games could present itself as "Invitation sport " at the World Games for the first time. With over 18,000 spectators at the final in Duisburg MSV - Arena Football was immediately crowd puller. A total of 28,000 spectators attended all four games of the tournament that was won by Germany.
The 3rd IFAF World Cup was awarded in 2007 to Japan and took place in Kawasaki. The team of Americans, who won for the first time took part in a Football World Cup. The team was composed of college players.
The final round of the 4th IFAF World Championship was held in Austria from July 8 to July 16, 2011. In the final game, the team from the United States clearly won against Canada.
Others
Representatives of the European continental federation in the IFAF is a native of Obertshausen lawyer Robert Huber, who is president of the European Federation of American Football ( EFAF ) and president of the American Football Association of Germany ( AFVD ) simultaneously.