Madrid, Spain (Weltexpress). Germany’s Franz Reindl has been elected the 15th president of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the organization’s press office said in a statement on Friday.
The semi-annual IIHF Congress is taking place in Tenerife, Spain, from September 30 to October 2 to elect the organization’s new leadership. Nine candidates were running for IIHF president.
It took two rounds to elect the new president. The first round of voting saw Petr Briza from the Czech Republic with 48 votes (41.03%), Reindl with 36 (30.77%) and Kyrgyzstan’s Aivaz Omorkanov with 33 (28.21%). Since no candidate received more than 50%, Omorkanov’s name was removed from the ballot and a second round conducted.
In the second round, Reindl secured 60 votes (51.28%) and Briza received 57 votes (48.72%).
According to the IIHF statement, “In all, there were nine candidates seeking the position of IIHF President. In alphabetical order, they included Henrik Bach Nielsen (Denmark), Petr Briza (the Czech Republic), Sergey Goncharov (Belarus), Frank Gonzalez (Spain), Zakaria Khechuashvili (Georgia), Jaan Molder (Estonia), Aivaz Omorkanov (Kyrgyzstan), Matjaz Rakovec (Slovenia) and Franz Reindl (Germany).”
“Bach Nielsen and Goncharov withdrew their nomination prior to the voting, and Gonzalez, Molder, and Khechuashvili withdrew after their speeches. Rakovec withdrew on the morning of voting day prior to the vote,” the statement continued.
Rindl, 71, is a retired professional ice hockey player and he has been a member of the IIHF Council since 2016 serving as the head of the IIHF Competition and Coordination Committee as well as the Athletes’ Committee. As a hockey player, he participated in nine IIHF World Championships, three Winter Olympic Games and the Canada Cup. He is the bronze medalist of the 1976 Winter Olympic Games in in Austria’s Innsbruck.
Reached by a TASS correspondent on October 1, two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time NHL Stanley Cup champion Vyacheslav Fetisov stated that major changes in the IIHF policy with regard to Russia should not be expected after a new president of the global sports federation is elected.
In February 2022, the IIHF suspended Russia and Belarus from participation in international competitions over the developments in Ukraine.
The Russian national ice hockey teams were also barred from the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy and IIHF President Luc Tardif told TASS in 2025 that the decision was made by the IOC and the IIHF had no say in this.
On July 30, the International Ice Hockey Federation announced a decision to extend Russia’s suspension from international tournaments until 2027. The IIHF stated that: “Following the IIHF Disciplinary Board Decision, the IIHF Council re-analyzed the Russian Ice Hockey Federation’s request that it be permitted to enter a Russian Team in each of the following IIHF Championships: IIHF Men’s World Championship 2027; IIHF Women’s World Championship 2027; IIHF World Junior Championship 2027; IIHF U18 Men’s World Championship 2027; and IIHF U18 Women’s World Championship 2027.”
In early September, the Russian Ice Hockey Federation (RHF) filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne against the IIHF decision to extend the suspension of Russian national teams.
