PRESS RELEASE
INTERNATIONAL MEETING
Rome, 26th November 2016
With a single objective of uniting American football in Europe, the representative federations of Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Norway, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and Sweden held a meeting on November 26th 2016 in the Italian Federation office in Rome.
Having in mind the priority to make American football in Europe stronger and with the main motive to further promote this sport in Europe, the above mentioned national federations unanimously agreed that keeping national team tournaments functioning as a whole, together with all nations is an essential goal.
We strongly believe that it should be mandatory that all national teams are present in all European tournaments.
To make this possible it is necessary that both groups that claim the IFAF name agrees on the following:
1. No nations should be banned to participate and current bans should be lifted so all nations shall participate together.
2. Sport Director who will cooperate with the IFAF Europe Sport Director elected by IFAF Paris Congress will be chosen by the group of the undersigned federations in order to organise together and coordinate any future competitions until final solution is reached.
Furthermore, the federations have decided:
3. Next European meeting should be held in late January or early February 2017 in Vienna in order to meet all European federations, especially the ones absent from this meeting, and also to discuss further steps if this proposal is rejected. The date will be decided by the nations who initiated this first meeting and all European federations will be informed accordingly.
4. Regarding the IFAF World situation, current political status and the possible CAS judgement about IFAF, the above mentioned federations decided that international player transfers should be done directly between federations until the situation is resolved.
Considering the priority to find a common ground for participation in European competitions and to make another step to reach these goals, the above mentioned federations are asking both groups that claim the IFAF name to give their answers to points one and two in this statement within 15 days from the date of receiving this letter.
