Welcome to the International Football Federation online home. The IFF, the defunct spring football league lasted just one press conference. The league didn't make it past their first and only press conference. The league had no television contract and no formal ownership groups. This site opened up in the fall of 2004. The purpose for this site is allow fans to remember this press conference league which folded shortly after the press conference.
International Football League
New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Denver, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Toronto, San Jose, Houston, Hartford, Hawaii.
Toronto Turbos and Connecticut Patroits were the rumored nicknames of the franchises.
An IFF-y proposition
Spring football league set to launch in 2000
Posted: Friday June 11, 1999 06:39 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- For now, the best way to assess the new spring football league that was announced Friday is by its initials -- IFF.
In other words, the International Football Federation, which hopes to start in February, has a chance to succeed IF:
If can get a television contract; it is seeking one and its last resort is showing games on the Internet.
It can bring respectable crowds to such venues as Giants Stadium and the Rose Bowl by drawing fans from other spring sports -- baseball, the NBA and NHL playoffs, the WNBA and Arena Football. It avoids the internal bickering and overspending that doomed such football ventures as the World League in the 1970s and the USFL in the 1980s.
Right now, there are 13 proposed franchises -- Honolulu was a last-minute entry Friday.
There are five in NFL cities -- New York, Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Denver. The others include two in the Los Angeles area and franchises in Toronto, San Jose, Calif., Texas, Toronto and Connecticut.
"I want football 12 months of the year," said entertainer Dionne Warwick, who will be a part owner of the two franchises in Southern California, which lost two NFL teams after the 1994 season and is having trouble getting together on an expansion team.
The new league is the brainchild of Dennis Murphy, who helped found both the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association in the '70s. They eventually merged some of their franchise with the NBA and NHL.
"The marketplace is better now than it was then," Murphy said at a news conference. "Then there were three networks. Now there are 200 channels on Direct TV, cable, what have you."
Davidson and Edward Litwack, the league's president and chief executive officer, acknowledged having preliminary discussions with NBC and Turner Broadcasting, the networks that lost out in the $18 billion NFL contract negotiated in 1998.
But both executives said neither NBC nor Turner will be ready for the inaugural season, which will run from February to July next year.
NBC and Turner Sports previously said they are considering sponsorship of a new football league but no plan has been put forward.
Litwack runs his own cable television systems that could be used for a syndicated package and sold individually to local stations or cable networks. He also said the games could be shown on the Internet.
Litwack emphasized that unlike the earlier leagues, the IFF would not threaten the NFL.
"We want to live in harmony," he said.
New league has Hawaii in its plans
The International Football Federation would play its games from February to June
Associated Press
Entertainment promoter Bob Peyton, a longtime isle concert promoter,is part of a group from Honolulu seeking a franchise in the newly-formed International Football Federation.
The league announced plans yesterday to open play next spring with 13 franchises, including one in Honolulu. Other cities include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto.
The league plans a season that will start in February with preseason games and run into June.
"They invited me to the meeting and wanted me to form an exploratory committee," Peyton said by phone. "So we filled out paperwork and are bringing back information to Honolulu. We are putting together meetings and hopefully we can end up with a franchise."
Peyton said he's talked with Aloha Stadium manager Eddie Hayashi about using the stadium, and will meet again with him next week. He said Hayashi is interested in having the team play in the stadium, since that's a time of year when the stadium is not used much.
Peyton also put down a deposit in an escrow account a show of good faith, but wouldn't disclose the amount or how much the franchise may cost.
He also didn't say who else would be involved with the local team, which has yet to be named. "I met with other league owners, the founders committee, the executive committee and they were pleased with what they saw," Peyton said. "They have interest in Honolulu as a venue that really helps them fulfill the international portion of their international federation."
