Maybe you noticed, Icelandhave qualified for the first time ever for a Championship in football. Well done Iceland.

Football in Europe is thebiggest sport and to have achieved this, you need to look at what have been done.

Back in 2003, many games where played on gravelpitches, but then The Federation decided to develop football. They decided a strategy, that would involved courses for coaches and to finance more artificial pitches.

The icelandic Federation builded on a two Way strategy

Get more pitches

Get many well educated coaches

Sine 2002, they have built.
6 full size indoorfootballpitches
20 artificial pitches
130 small sized pitches, placed near schools

With these many pitches, football can be played everywhere and at any time, remember that back in 2003, many matches in the best league, were still played at gravel.

Regarding education, the federation have decided not to make a profit on Education, so the cost for participation is very low.

Today, iceland have around 700 UEFA B LICENSE coaches, which means you have high quality coaches, who are working at grassroots level.

With iceland being such a small nation, 700 coaches is a very high number, and to becoming a UEFA B Licened Coach, it takes at least 120 hours.

So the quality of coaching, many more pitches are the fundamental reasons behind the succes.

Back in 2011, iceland where not even in the top 100 at the FIFA ranking, they were #112, and here in 2015 they are #23, quite an achievement.

With quality in coaching, the coaches are aware of the benifits with training other sports. In Iceland its normal to have players training both football and other sports at the same time, and this to a quite old age.

So what Can be learned from a floorball perspective.

#1 You must be aware of what you want to achieve

#2 If you want quality at the top, you MUST start to build with quality from the bottom.

#3 Its important to strive for education, there are many player/parents coaches who does their best, but most of them are not good enough

#4 You must as a federation decide how to prioritize how you spend your money. It doesnt help if you have a strategy, if you dont follow it with how you will spend your money

Floorball can be played almost everywhere, so need to build pitches. But floorball is most funny, when played with ok sticks. Think of giving away or at a very low price, sticks to schools, kindergartens and just let them use it.

Think of giving a free education with floorballbasics for the teachers

Think of demand a certain level of education, to be coach at the best level

Get started
There are many things you can do, in order to promote floorball and make it growth. But start at the bottom, set some realistics goals, and make the sport growth.

Its easier to make succes at seniorlevel, if you have done your homework at youthlevel

Help each other, especially other clubs, see other clubs and federations as partners, who have the same goal as you, and we need to share knowledge in order to collaborate

Photo: IFF and Simon Brechbuhler