Delegates from IAFA, attended the Federation of Irish Sport Conference on the afternoon of Tuesday 21st May at the Guinness Store House in Dublin. (and no, the black stuff was not free). Over sixty Irish sporting organisations were present and the speakers included Sir Keith Mills, the CEO of the London Olympics, Alistair Gray of Renaissance (producer of the FAI “Genesis Report”) and FIS CEO Sarah O’Connor. The Federation of Irish Sport unvailed its new 4 year Strategic Plan at the Conference.
Link to report on the Conference including conference materials and video presentations.
The IAFA board also met prior to the conference to dicuss current issues and planning for the remainder of this seasons events.
Two points that were raised relating to IAFL1, that seem to be topical at the moment, were promotion and special teams.
To outline briefly…Promotion will still be at this point only open to one team who fulfill audit criteria to be promoted and all existing and joining teams for 2014 will be required to introduce special teams to their games as agreed at the past AGM.
It was agreed unanimously at the meeting, that a strategic plan for the next four years (2014-17) under the new IAFA set up, be implemented and that the Associations Board will be proposing and opening, plenary / forum sessions with all sections of the game to unify, develop and work to resolve all issues within each section of the Association, finally coming together across the game at all levels and building towards best practice for all to promote and improve standards.
Boardmatch Ireland is currently in the process of recruiting an external member for the IAFA Board, who is expected to join over the summer months.
A progress update was also given regarding the IAFA’s summer events programme which includes the Altantic Cup in late June, the SBC Semi-Finals and Shamrock Bowl in July and The Gathering Bowl in late August – all taking place in Tallaght Stadium.
Finally, the Board discussed the introduction of Youth Kitted Football and agreed to schedule a series of blitz tournaments during the autumn months.