International Floorball Federation chooses Exel Sports as the Official Floorball Equipment Provider

International Floorball Federation chooses Exel Sports as the Official Floorball Equipment Provider The International Floorball Federation, IFF, and the world’s leading floorball equipment manufacturer Exel Sports have signed a partnership agreement for the years 2006 – 2010 in order to develop floorball worldwide. “The signed contract with Exel Sports is historical and very important since we now have a major partner as an official floorball equipment provider, including sticks, balls, rinks, goals and goalie equipment. It also gives us the possibility to start developing our sport and events even further”, Mr. Per Jansson, IFF Marketing Function Chairman, says. The International Floorball Federation is a very rapidly growing sports federation, with a total of 37 member federations on four continents. Floorball has a total of 300,000 licensed players and a total of 1.8 million recreational players in the world. Floorball has become the alternative team sport for both men and women in a number of countries, due to the easiness to start playing, the speed of the game and that the sport is inexpensive compared to other sports. “Exel Sports is proud to become a long-term partner with IFF to help floorball, a great team sport to develop globally and strengthen its position among youth team sports in the countries where it has already been played for years”, Mr. Mika Sulin, Managing Director of Exel Sports, says. “The objective of the co-operation is to continue to spread the sport of floorball, where the interests of Exel Sports and IFF match, since both are striving to enlarge the number of floorball playing countries in the world. The key focus areas for the spreading of floorball are North America, China and Central Europe.” “IFF has revised its marketing strategy in 2005, where the objective was set to build a new environment where we are capable to differentiate between different partners also outside the floorball world. This agreement with Exel Sports makes it possible for IFF to build a solid foundation for the IFF Events, like the WFC 2006 in Sweden, where all the championships will have the same look and feel when it comes to floorball equipment, flooring and apparel”, Mr. John Liljelund, IFF General Secretary says. “Exel has during the past years proven to be true partner in bringing floorball equipment forward, with presenting the first present type of floorball sticks and introducing the second generation of balls in floorball. This co-operation will take floorball a number of steps forward in our aim to grow the sport”, Mr. John Liljelund adds. New colour ball for the World Championships Exel Sports will launch a new floorball, Precision WFC-Vanilla ball in the World Championships in Globen Arena in Stockholm, Sweden on 28 May 2006. The new colour, WFC-Vanilla, stands out in the best possible way from the World Cup playing court surface ”Gerflor-Taraflex”. The Precision ball is crafted using the latest technology and know-how from aerodynamics. Its unique characteristics ensure a faster and safer play in all situations and on all types of court surface. This can be felt especially on rubber floors and other frictional court surfaces. The new Precision WFC-Vanilla ball is approved by IFF and the official World Championships ball 2006 - 2010. Exel Sports players the majority in Finland’s and Sweden’s WFC-team Altogether eight of the Finnish players and seven of the Swedish teams’ players are Exel players. The players of all times, the most entertaining and impressive player Janne Tähkä, will be the commentator for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE and his Swedish rival Martin Olofsson, who has won an impressive four World Championships, and is also 3 times MVP and All Star player in WFC, will be seen on court for the last time as he has announced his retirement after this tournament. For more information please contact: Mr. Mika Sulin, Managing Director, Exel Sports, tel. +358 40 5278 101 Mr. John Liljelund, IFF General Secretary, tel. +358 400 529 030 Photos of the new Precision WFC-Vanilla ball, Exel floorball sticks and Exel players can be found at www.exel.net/imagebank. User ID: Press, password: WFC06. Exel Sports Oy handles Exel Oyj’s consumer products’ (poles and floorball products) marketing, sales, logistics and product development globally. The company employs some 40 persons. Exel Sports is a fully owned subsidiary of the parent company Exel Oyj. The Group’s 11 factories are located in Finland, Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Germany and the UK. International operations account for some 85% of the Group’s net sales which were EUR 91 million in 2005. The Group employs 600 persons and its share is quoted on Helsinki Stock Exchange Main list. Further information: www.exelsports.net.