Players disappointed by low turnout at Women’s World Floorball Championship

SINGAPORE – Floorball’s biggest event is in town with the Women’s World Championship taking place from Dec 2 to 10, but the sport’s best players have arrived to little fanfare, playing in sparsely filled arenas for most of the first seven days.

Those fixtures, played at the OCBC Arena, had an average crowd of 261 per match. Germany’s group game against France on Dec 3 drew just 86 fans in one hall while Singapore’s 3-2 defeat by the Germans on Dec 5 had the biggest crowd, with 671 turning up in another hall with a capacity of over 1,500.

This is the first time the biennial event is staged outside of Europe since the Republic hosted the 2005 edition.

Several players expressed disappointment about the empty stands and hope that the turnout will improve as the competition shifts to the Singapore Indoor Stadium on Dec 9 and 10, when the semi-finals and final will be held respectively.

“I’m a bit disappointed about Singapore, about spectators, I expected much more that when Singapore gets the world championship, they will do something, they will get some spectators,” said Switzerland’s Corin Ruttimann, 31, who has played in every edition of the competition since 2009.

“I hope it will be better tomorrow when we change to another hall, if it will be the same spectators like today then it’s a bit sad.”

While Finland’s Veera Kauppi, a three-time world championship silver medallist, understands that the sport is still developing here, she feels that the event’s marketing could have been better.

She recalled how special it was for the team to be backed by a home crowd of thousands at the 2015 edition back home in Tampere. It helped them reach the final, where they lost to juggernauts Sweden only on penalties.

Kauppi, 26, said: “We want fans and people to see when we play because it’s such a big window (of opportunity) for our sport because in Finland we’re getting a lot of media time.

“It could be better for our sport to show that there are people in the stands, whether it’s paying people or not, it doesn’t look good when you’re showing empty stands.”

Polish defender Weronika Noga said the lack of spectators has been a topic of conversation among her teammates. Some prefer quieter stands as it makes it easier for them to focus, while others like knowing that they are playing in front of a sizeable crowd.

But Noga, who plays for Swiss club Zug United, felt that the event could have been used to raise the profile of the sport here.

“This is a great opportunity to show the best quality of the sport – each of the teams who are here has its quality but at the end we can say honestly the top four teams are still at the upper level,” said Noga, 29, who has played at six world championships. “This is an amazing sport, it’s really fast, it’s a pleasure for the eyes to watch.

“People who are not really connected to the sport would enjoy such games.”

In response to queries about the attendance figures, Singapore Floorball Association president Ben Ow said that there has been a “positive pick up” in ticket sales towards the later part of the week, adding that tickets to matches for the last two days are being sold at 50 per cent off.

Adrian Tan, director of Kin Productions, the promoter and co-organiser of the event, said that “significant resources” were invested to “give all participants and spectators a good experience”.

He added that much of their marketing efforts were done digitally to reach floorball fans in Singapore and the region.

International Floorball Federation secretary general John Liljelund was looking forward to bigger crowds over the weekend. He said the governing body was “very content” with the tournament’s organisation and added: “The teams have had very good venues to play in and the service to the teams have been of top class.”

Ow urged fans to turn up for the closing weekend, saying: “Our commitment to providing an exceptional and enjoyable experience for our fans is unwavering.”

Additional reporting by Melvyn Teoh