Founded in 1985, the Finnish Floorball Federation (SSBL) is the governing body for floorball

Floorball

Floorball, a type of floor hockey, is an indoor team sport which was developed in the 1970s in Sweden. Floorball is most popular in areas where the sport has developed the longest, such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The game is played...

 in the country of Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. The SSBL's number of professional licensed players is 39,104 (in May 2006), making it the nation's third most popular sport, after association football and ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

.

The SSBL organizes the Salibandyliiga

Salibandyliiga

The Salibandyliiga is the top floorball league in the country of Finland. There are men's and women's divisions, and the winner at the end of each season is presented with a national championship. The league was founded in 1986, but has only been referred to as the salibandyliiga since 1994...

 and Finnish Floorball Cup competitions. Alongside the top National Floorball League, there is another league where over 1800 teams compete in 10 divisions (6 male, 4 female).

Organisation

The clubs competing in the SSBL divisions are represented on the "Congress", with a number of votes (between one and three) proportional to the number of registered players at a club. The Congress functions as the electorate for the Council members and SSBL Board, which has nine members with two-year terms.

The SSBL has regional offices in Joensuu

Joensuu

Joensuu is a city and municipality in North Karelia in eastern Finland. It is located in the province of Eastern Finland and is part of North Karelia region. It was founded in 1848...

, Lappeenranta

Lappeenranta

Lappeenranta is a city and municipality that resides on the shore of the lake Saimaa in South-Eastern Finland, about from the Russian border. It belongs to the region of South Karelia. With approximately inhabitants Lappeenranta is the largest city in Finland...

, Oulu

Oulu

Oulu is a city and municipality of inhabitants in the region of Northern Ostrobothnia, in Finland. It is the most populous city in Northern Finland and the sixth most populous city in the country. It is one of the northernmost larger cities in the world....

, Seinäjoki

Seinäjoki

Seinäjoki is a city located in Southern Ostrobothnia, Finland. Seinäjoki originated around the Östermyra bruk iron and gunpowder factories founded in 1798. Seinäjoki became a municipality in 1868, market town in 1931 and town in 1960...

, Tampere

Tampere

Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...

 and Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

, alongside the head office, which is based in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

.