International Federation of American Football

President: Tommy Wiking (Sweden)

Wiking, whose IFAF leadership is combined with a full time job as Chief Financial Officer of StayAt Hotels in Sweden, attended the first ever IFAF meeting when it was founded in 1998. He became President in 2006. Delegates from a record number of 28 countries present at the annual IFAF Congress in Seville, Spain, unanimously elected Wiking for a second term in the summer of 2008.

He first discovered the game in the 1980s in his native Sweden and watched the Minnesota Vikings take on the Chicago Bears in American Bowl preseason action in Stockholm. He eventually attended his first NFL regular season game on a Monday night in San Diego,

Wiking was typical of a new generation of international American football fans whose enthusiasm was the catalyst for teams to spring up across the globe. Many European countries experienced a similar upsurge in interest in the decidedly foreign sport. He took the initiative and started his own university team in 1990, played left tackle for the Stockholm Traders and a year later was elected to the board of the Swedish federation, eventually taking over the presidency.

A resident of Gothenburg, the second-largest city in Sweden located on the country’s west coast, 40-year old Wiking and his partner Sofia have two children, Ulysses (2) and Aeneas (six months).

Senior Vice President: K. K. Park (Korea)

Dr. and Prof. Kyung-Kyoo Park. (Ph D in Engineering) has served on the IFAF Executive Board since 2006 and before that was the Executive Committee member for Asia. He is also a member of the IFAF Rules Committee.

In his role as President of the Korea American Football Association (KAFA), he is responsible for all amateur American Football in Korea, which includes 37 college and 8 club teams as well as a junior and senior flag football program.

Vice President: Jose Jorge Orobio de Rosas (Mexico)

Jose Jorge Orobio Rosas was elected as Vice President of IFAF in 2002 and was reelected in both 2006 and 2008.

He was elected President of the Mexican Federation of American Football (FMFA) in 1999 having also served as secretary and treasurer and has been reelected twice. In 2007 in recognition of his role at the FMFA as an important promoter in the initiation of the Pan American Federation of American Football (PAFAF), he was elected as Vice President of the newly founded PAFAF.

Jose Jorge Orobio Rosas was born in Mexico City on March 12, 1951 and graduated as an Accountant from the IPN (National Polithecnic Institute). He currently works as an independent professional and financial advisor for several important Companies in Mexico City and the vicinity.

He first became involved in football in 1979 as a business manager for the Colegio Tepeyac Tinytot team in which his son was playing.

Junior Vice President: Roope Noronen (Finland)

Roope Noronen has served as the President of the American Football Association of Finland since 2001 and was elected as IFAF Junior Vice President in 2008. He has served as a representative of EFAF to the IFAF Executive Committee since 2006.

Noronen played football at junior and senior levels for the Helsinki Roosters organization and for Duluth East (MN) High School and the Finish national team, winning the European Junior Championship in 1992 and two Finnish national titles.

He has served on numerous tournament committees, including those of the IFAF Senior World Championships, World Games, European Championships, European Junior Championships and IFAF and EFAF flag football events.

Noronen is the Head of Department (Pension Law and Decisions) at Tapiola Mutual Pension Insurance and earned his Master of Law Degree at the University of Helsinki.

Treasurer: Scott Hallenbeck (USA)

Scott Hallenbeck has led USA Football, the national governing body of America's favorite sport on youth and amateur levels, since 2005. He oversees all aspects of the organization, including football development, communications, corporate partnerships, and membership programs.

Under Hallenbeck's leadership, USA Football has built senior and junior national teams for international competition, produced industry-leading resources to further strengthen coaching and officiating within America's No. 1 sport, established a $500,000-per-year equipment grant program, and kicked-off a ground-breaking volunteer youth coach background check subsidy program to ensure positive football experiences for the game's millions of young players.

Secretary: To be confirmed

Executive Committee member Europe: Robert Huber (Germany)

Robert Huber has been the President of the European Federation of American Football (EFAF) since 2001 and the President of the German American Football federation (AFVD) since 1997.

The Frankfurt am Main native served as IFAF Secretary General from 2000 to 2008 and was the Tournament Committee chairman for the IFAF Senior World Championships in Japan in 2007 and Germany in 2003.

Aside from his long association with international American football, Huber is a lawyer with additional court certification for the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main (High Court of Hessen at Frankfurt).

Executive Committee member Asia: Hidetsugu Hirai (Japan)

Hidetsugu Hirai has been the President of Japan’s American football Association West Conference since 2005 and became the Assumption of Japan American Football Association (JAFA) vice president in 2009.

He was born in 1948 in Kyoto City and played as a running back and a linebacker at Ritsumeikan University for four years from 1966.

He became a volunteer coach at Ritsumeikan University in 1970 and later became the school’s head coach in 1993, retiring in 2001 to take on the role of general manager until 2005.

Under Hirai’s coaching, Ritsumeikan won the Japan Collegiate Championship in 1994 and 1998 and were also Japan National Champions in 2003 and 2004. In his role as general manager he also delivered the Japanese college title in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Executive Committee member Pan-America: Richard Munro (Canada)

Richard Munro joined Football Canada in 2008 and has been the president of Munro & Associates, his own consulting firm specializing in strategic planning, marketing & event planning and fundraising/revenue generation, for the past twelve years.

Munro was the Executive Director of the Canadian Canoe Association from 1981 to 1984. In 1981, he led the establishment of the now annual Terry Fox Run which has raised more than $400 million to date. He was the president of the Kiwanis Club of Ottawa and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), Ottawa Chapter.

The graduate of Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia), was the recipient of the Outstanding Fund Raising Executive Award from the AFP in 1999 and was inducted into the Dalhousie University’s Sports Hall of Fame in December 2007.

Managing Director: Michael Preston

As Managing Director of IFAF, Michael Preston is responsible for the daily running of the organization. He oversees protocol, provides assistance to all IFAF committees and ensures IFAF maintains World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) compliance. As IFAF continues focus on game and player development, he is responsible for overseeing training programs, liaising with the IFAF technical committee and implementing online courses and offline clinics. Preston also coordinated the launch of the IFAF.org website and handles IFAF media relations.

Preston is a native of Birmingham, England, and his sports public relations company Preston Consulting was established in Massachusetts in 2002. A former sports writer, he was the Assistant Director of Public Relations for NFL Europe in London from 1997 to 2002. Like many international fans of the game, he first discovered a love for American football when the sport came to prominence in the 1980s and became a fan of and press officer for the Birmingham Bulls of the British American Football Association.