First-ever World University American Football Championship to take place in May

LAUSANNE – May 2014 will be a historic date for FISU as the very first World University Championship in American Football will be organised. This new event will take place in the Swedish city of Uppsala, from May 1 to 11.

The Championship is almost here and the WUC department is sure that it will be great first event for this spectacular sport. After having done an extensive inspection visit in Uppsala, the WUC department knows that the Organising Committee is ready to organise a very good event.

Despite the woman’s tournament not taking place due to low participation interest, the men’s tournament will be of a really high level with six teams registered for the competition, some of them being the top world ranking teams.

As the organising country, Sweden will send a strong team, hoping to use the home crowd as an advantage. The next WUC hosts are Mexico, hoping to gain experience as they will be organising the second edition in Monterrey in 2016. Two other teams that have signed up are Finland and China. It will be the first international participation for China where American Football is now growing fast, becoming more and more popular. Japan has also confirmed its participation and being the actual 3^rd best team in the world on the IFAF ranking, it will certainly guarantee quality. Last but not least, the powerhouse USA will also compete for the first World University Champion title.

FISU and the Organising Committee are really happy to have the home country of this sport participating to this first event. This will certainly raise the competition level but also, more importantly, the level of interest – three of the six teams registered are actually ranked amongst the five best ranked countries in the world.

The competition format will consist of a group phase with two groups of three teams, followed by semi-finals and final. The draw of the groups will take place in the FISU headquarters (Lausanne) on 2 April. More information is available on the official website of the competition .

(Source: WUC)