The Internet Football Association represents the
teams of football e-mail discussion groups and message boards across the UK.
At present we have members from all the Scottish and all the English
divisions as well as a number of teams from mainland Europe. In the aerly
nineties many supporters, particularly ex-pats kept in touch with other fans
via email. These people tended to be mainly people in technical or academic
employment as email was widely available in those professions. These are the
people who formed the Internet Football Association in 1996. With the
expansion of the world wide web we now include fans from all sorts of
backgrounds as well as those who communicate via message boards as well as
email lists.
Our founder is Dave "Voice of Football" Walmsley who at the time
of Euro 96, wanted to show that football fans could come together in the
spirit of the game, play football and build bridges between their respective
teams. This was after Graham Kelly the then chief of the FA was publicly
sceptical about the ability of English football supporters to behave
themselves at Euro 96.
He organised at a tournament called Euronet 96 in Nottingham, one of the
host cities for Euro 96. Since then we have grown from the original 16 teams
to over a hundred teams. We have an annual two-day knock out tournament, a
league and a cup competition. Our competitions are UK based and encourage
fans to play football regardless of their ability, gender, race or age. We
are generously sponsored by Sports Interactive, the people who make the
Football Manager computer game.
Our teams normally play their league matches in the mornings before
"the big match" and several clubs have been very helpful in
ensuring that all those who have played in these matches are able to attend
"the big match" that follows. Some clubs give free tickets to the
visitors, others ensure that the visitors are able to buy tickets for the
match. This is often done in conjunction with official supporters
clubs, supporters trusts and ISAs in which many of our players are leading
lights.
Internet football is not just about winning. It's about taking part and
building bridges between rival sets of supporters. Having said that we
consider our leagues, competitions and tournaments professionally run and
allow for an element of competition and pride in supporting one's home team.
We have also ensured that we involve ourselves in the major footballing
issues of the day especially anti-racism and anti-sectarianism. We have been
successful in bringing fans of opposing teams together in the spirit of the
game, to the point where quite unusual alliances and friendships have sprung
up. None less than when
the IFA cup takes place and teams criss cross the Anglo Scottish border in
search of cup glory.
Our tournament, run at the University of Leeds we were featured heavily on
Sky Sports Television and UK Radio, we hosted teams from Greece and France.
WorldNET sees over a thousand fans enjoy two days of football.
WorldNET 2003 saw our greatest number of teams ever - 64 - playing for both
the Sports Interactive Cup and the Sports Interactive Plate. WorldNET
2007 is in Leeds on 14/15/16 July.
We maintain a website at http://www.internet
football.org.uk and we also run our own e-mail discussion list.
Wherever possible we encourage teams to forge links with their parent clubs
- to the point where teams who have won our competitions have been presented
to supporters on the pitch at senior games, have featured in club programmes
and in the case of some clubs have been given official recognition along
with support of a more material kind. This has taken the form of donations
of kit, use of facilities, assistance with transport costs.
To contact us e-mail info@internetfootball.org.uk
