Source : ABC NEWS
National Football League teams have voted in favour of allowing their players to compete in flag football at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
The league itself had long been on board with players competing in the Games since the sport was one of five added to the slate in October 2023, while multiple athletes — including two-time MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes — said they wanted to play.
In August last year, as part of the handover from Paris to LA, Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jalen Hurts filmed promotional material, proudly announcing “It’s our turn” in his role as the International Federation of American Football’s (IFAF) global flag football ambassador.
The plan to let NFL stars compete at the Olympics cleared a key hurdle when all 32-team owners voted unanimously in favour of the resolution at a league meeting in Minnesota.
“It’s an incredible honour for any athlete to represent their country in the Olympics, which is the pinnacle of global sport,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement.
“I know first-hand that the inclusion of flag football in the Olympics has sparked a tremendous amount of excitement among NFL players interested in the chance to compete for their country on the world stage.
“We are thrilled that they will now have that chance.”
NFL stars play games of flag football at the league’s annual Pro Bowl event. (Getty Images: Mike Ehrmann)
The league, NFLPA, Olympic entities and the IFAF will now be left to work out the finer details, including injury protection measures, standards for field surfaces, as well as players’ workload and schedule management.
NFL players would be expected to go through a try-out or qualification process in order to compete for their national team like any other Olympic hopeful, the league said.
When the sport, akin to an American football version of OzTag, was added to the Olympics, many assumed the US team would be littered with the likes of Mahomes, Hurts and Christian McCaffrey.
That ruffled a few feathers in the flag world with world championship-winning quarterback Darrell Doucette drawing heat for comments that he was “better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game”.
“We have to try out and so [should] they,” he told TMZ last year.
“I don’t want it to be like they’re entitled because of their names to be able to just automatically be on the team.
“We are fans of these guys and we love the fact that they want to go out and win a gold medal and represent the country just like us, but we don’t want to be forgotten about because we are the ones that helped the game get to where it’s at.”
But the announcement raises the tantalising possibility of a new Dream Team, 36 years after the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona when the US basketball team allowed NBA stars for the first time.
“Reverting back to being a kid and watching the track and field meets, watching basketball win the gold medal, that’s something that as a kid I always wanted to be a part of, but football wasn’t global,” Minnesota Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson said at a press conference.
“So now we’re expanding the game, it’s pretty cool.”
In partnership with IFAF, the NFL has ramped up its promotion of flag football since it joined the Olympic schedule, with an eye toward drawing more women into an arena long dominated by men.
Six men’s teams and six women’s teams are expected to compete in flag football at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, with 10 players a team competing in a five-on-five format.
The US has won the past five straight men’s flag world championships and three straight women’s titles.
AP/ABC
