NFL groups voted in favour of a decision permitting their gamers to compete in flag soccer on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, the NFL have confirmed.
The league itself had lengthy been on board with gamers competing within the Video games, whereas a number of athletes – together with two-time MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes – mentioned they wished to play.
The plan cleared a key hurdle on Tuesday, as group homeowners gave their blessing at a league assembly 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 mentioned in a press release.
“I do know first-hand that the inclusion of flag soccer within the Olympics has sparked an amazing quantity of pleasure amongst NFL gamers within the probability to compete for his or her nation on the world stage.
“We are thrilled that they will now have that chance.”
The league, NFLPA, Olympic entities and the game’s international governing physique IFAF will now be left to work out the effective particulars, together with harm safety measures, requirements for discipline surfaces, in addition to gamers’ workload and schedule administration.
The transfer may see a significant injection of star energy into the flag soccer competitors, with the potential to carry U.S. sport’s largest names to their house Video games in a rustic the place the NFL reigns supreme in reputation.
The NFL has ramped up its promotion of the game, a non-contact format of American soccer, for the reason that IOC permitted it for the LA28 programme in 2023, with an eye fixed towards drawing extra girls into an enviornment lengthy dominated by males.
The Olympics may also go a good distance in direction of boosting the NFL’s longstanding worldwide ambitions, because the league has moved to globalise the sport.
Six males’s groups and 6 girls’s groups are anticipated to compete in flag soccer on the 2028 Los Angeles Video games, with 10 gamers per group competing in a five-on-five format.
