The Case for Flag Football As an Olympic Sport
The Olympics are unlike some other carrying competition on earth. For sixteen days, over 300 activities representing 35 sports and everyone on the earth compete to take domestic their prized medals. I have looked ahead to watching the Summer Olympics every four years because as away again as I can recollect. But there is usually something lacking. One of the United States most famous sports activities, and a pinnacle 10 game all through the arena, it seems as even though address and flag soccer could be Olympic sports activities by the year 2024, however difficulty limitations nevertheless continue to be for that to turn out to be a reality. First, we’ll walk through some reasons why the road to getting American Football covered into the Olympics has no longer been a clean adventure, observed using why we believe flag football to be the logical solution and preference as a destiny Olympic recreation.
According to an article using NFL.Com, the largest logistical problems going through the game of American Football being protected inside the Olympics are like that of Rugby. With the large numbers of members in each group, the “gender equality” formats in which each ladies and men take part in each recreation, and the compressed 3-week agenda would be difficult with an extra bodily game like football and rugby. Furthermore, for American Football, the entry barrier is excessive because of its price to equip all players with pads and tools. Therefore, it has also been sluggish to adopt in many overseas countries, especially poorer variety.
Knowing all this, it isn’t easy to look at how either sport could be an amazing fit for the Summer Olympics. Rugby is a lot like Soccer in that little or no is wanted to play the sport in gear and exercise phrases at its base degree and has a much large global following. This, among other reasons, has recently allowed Rugby to be cleared for the Olympics starting in 2016 through converting the conventional style to a much less conventional “sevens” layout that’s faster-paced with much fewer human beings, which could help carve a comparable direction for American Football, or flag football greater specifically.
Even increasingly high college, university, and pro groups are starting to reduce the variety of touch practices, nevertheless carrying gentle-padded headgear and shoulder pads for brought safety. But what if we ought to limit the contact players see earlier than excessive school and center faculty whilst additionally addressing a number of the concerns for the game related to it being fully commonplace into the Olympics? Several speak currently revolving around the protection of tackle football, not just within the NFL in which concussions are a prime problem. Starting as a way back as the children soccer degree, the current proof has surfaced supporting the concept that even brief of a concussion, repeated head influences, and collision can occur in similar brain injuries later in existence for kids tested ages of eight-13. Many researchers are suggesting children should not be playing soccer at all, suggesting that kids’ heads are “a larger a part of their frame, and their necks aren’t as sturdy as adults’ necks. So kids can be at a more chance of head and brain injuries than adults.”
As of 2015, studies show that flag soccer is the quickest developing teenagers recreation within the United States, greatly outpacing the growth of conventional address football. Many individual excessive faculties are switching to flag football over the tackle, getting different colleges of their regions to follow healthy creating organized leagues and divisions. It’s even an officially recognized varsity sport in lots of states. With girls particularly, flag soccer is a way to permit less difficult participation versus the address’s physical nature. And he’s not the only one. Recently, Drew Brees interviewed Peter King for NBC’s pregame display and had some robust phrases on why he believes flag football is the answer.
“I sense like flag football can shop soccer,” Brees stated. Brees coaches his son’s flag football crew and performed flag football himself thru junior high, in no way playing tackle football till high college. “I feel like (flag football) is an outstanding introductory method for plenty of kids into football,” Brees stated. “Otherwise, I feel it’s spotless to go in and feature a bad experience early on and then not want ever to play it again. I experience it like when you put the pads on, there are just so many other elements to the game, and you’re at the mercy of the coach in several instances. And to be honest, I do not suppose enough coaches are well-versed sufficient in regards to the proper fundamentals of the sport, mainly when the pads go on at the young people level.” Many other seasoned athletes and coaches have expressed similar sentiments as properly, making a song praises for flag football, and the upward thrust in popularity of the game echoes that.
Historically, To be blanketed into the Olympic games as an illustration recreation, you need to have an International Federation and feature held a World Championship competition. This has to take location at least 6 years earlier than a scheduled Olympic video game. The International Federation of American Football, commonly centered on address football but consisted of the flag in its match lineup, met this fashionable and became authorized in 2012 and won provisional popularity in 2014.
This could pave the way for American soccer to be included as a reliable recreation and flag football as probable a discipline of said recreation. Still, the IFAF has because confronted setbacks because of alleged scandal, event mismanagement, and misappropriation of finances that can’t bode nicely for the sports activities inclusion short term. Fortunately, in 2007, the IOC followed a brand new, bendier rule set allowing packages to be up for assessment after every Olympics beginning in 2020, clearing a path for all sports to present their case for being included using prevailing a simple majority vote.
Depending on which layout might be used (our bet is either 5v5 or 7v7), flag soccer requires a long way fewer participants than conventional tackle soccer. Part of that is because of it being a much less physically annoying sport and the need for much fewer substitutions. Any other element is due to needing less professional players, consisting of kickers, punters, special teams, offensive lineman, and so forth. Where each traditional address football crew might probably convey 50+ competition, flag football could need probable 15 gamers at most, slicing that range too much less than a 3rd. This is vital because the Olympics cap their total members to ten,500 athletes and coaches. It also allows more international locations to compete, especially poorer countries, wherein fielding a smaller and much less financially demanding team coupled with the motives above makes more feel.