The World Indoor Football League was an indoor football league that was to begin in

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

to compete with the

Arena Football League The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...

, which was playing its second season in 1988. Some of the teams in the league ran into financial trouble before their season was to begin, and thus the league never came to fruition. Like the Arena Football League, the WIFL was to use rebound nets (the AFL's patent on them had not yet taken effect), but only to prevent losing balls: any ball that made contact with the nets would be declared dead, similar to a rule instituted by the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

over a decade later. The WIFL also encouraged high offense, but in a different way: instead of restricting the motion of defensive players as the AFL did (and still does), the WIFL proposed using a permanent version of the

power play Power play or powerplay or their plurals may refer to: Sports * Power play (sporting term), a sporting term used in various games * Powerplay (cricket), a rule concerning fielding restrictions in one-day international cricket * Power play (cur ...

by placing eight players on offense and only seven on defense, creating an 8-on-7 advantage for the offensive team. The WIFL planned a 10-game schedule in the summer months, followed by a championship which would revive the name of the

World Bowl The World Bowl was the annual American football championship game of the World League of American Football/NFL Europe. The World Bowl was played each year from 1991 to 2007 (except 1993 and 1994). The game was conceived as the final of the NFL-r ...

(last used in 1974 by the outdoor

World Football League The World Football League (WFL) was an American football league that played one full season in 1974 and most of its second in 1975. Although the league's proclaimed ambition was to bring American football onto a worldwide stage, the farthest t ...

). Players would be paid US$500 per game (a relatively high sum) or a third of ticket revenue, whichever was greater. The league also had a television contract with FNN-SCORE. Eleven days prior to the WIFL's debut, however, Baltimore and San Antonio folded, and Indiana followed suit. Not desiring to move forward with only three teams in the league, the remaining franchises instead sought to join the AFL to begin play in 1989. When the AFL reportedly set the expansion fee in the seven-figure range (allegedly to purposefully discourage the WIFL teams from joining), the three teams could not meet those demands and folded. The AFL would not have another competing indoor league until 1998.

The proposed 1988 WIFL lineup

External links

ArenaFan article about WIFL
{{Profootball Defunct indoor American football leagues in the United States Sports leagues established in 1988 1988 disestablishments