International Netball Federation

General information

The organisation is based in Manchester, England. The INF has over 70 national members which are grouped into five regional areas: Africa, Asia, Americas, Europe and Oceania. The INF is governed by a congress that meets every two years, a board of directors that meets three times a year, a chief executive officer and a Secretariat. It is also responsible for providing world rankings for national representative teams. The INF organises several major international competitions including the Netball World Cup. It is also a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Code.

History

In 1957, a pair of national netball organisations discussed the need to create an international governing body for the sport to help address issues like standardising the rules. This conversation was started between England and Australia, while Australia was touring England. In 1960, netball representatives from Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies finally gathered to create the needed organisation, the International Federation of Women's Basketball and Netball. The meeting took place in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), with rules for the newly creating organisation being created. A decision was made at this first meeting create a world championship competition for the sport to be held every four years, with the first event to be held in 1963 in Eastbourne, England.

The organisation has since undergone several changes. After all countries adopted the name "netball" for the sport, the organisation was renamed the "International Federation of Netball Associations" (IFNA). This name was used until November 2012, when the organisation changed to its current name, the "International Netball Federation" (INF), to bring it in line with other sports governing bodies.

Netball World Cup

The INF is responsible for organising the Netball World Cup (formerly the World Netball Championships), the premier event in international netball, held every four years. The table below contains a list of these championships/cups, where they took place and how many teams competed in the event.

Goals and objectives

One of the goals of the INF is to attain International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognition for netball and to lobby for the sport's inclusion at future Olympic Games.

National organisations

The following (incomplete) list is a timeline of national organisations becoming affiliated with the International Netball Federation:

1960

1978

1992

2010