by Marco Pozzi
Olympics e Paralympics have recently finished, the workers have dismantled the structures in the city and are rearranging the Olympic village towards its second life. Having concluded the reporting of the past event, the organizers are already looking forward to the future edition, in Los Angeles in 2028. There will be five new sports compared to Paris: baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse, squash and flag football. Few will have heard of the latter, and therefore I talk about it.
It is a kind of non-contact football, with a ball that must go to the goal, played five against five, in two twenty-minute halves; each player has two stripes attached to their side – the “flag” – which, if torn by an opponent, causes them to lose possession. Here a short cartoon to explain the rules; and here to understand some game action. I talked about it with Andrea Gonnellapresident of the Alfieri team of Asti and general secretary of the Italian Flag Football League.
He tells me that, after trying various sports, he fell in love with football; but when he discovers flag football he is immediately hooked. It seems to him to be the most complete of team sports: you have to be athletic, have timing, know how to read the situation and above all you need a profound understanding between teammates to move together in relation to the moment of the match and the opponents.
Tear off the flag represents a tackle. This limits the adrenaline of the fight but also the bruises from the beatings, so much so that many athletes come from American football, whether injured or at the end of their career. Flag football can be offered to children in schools, or to entrepreneurs for corporate team building. He remembers the games that as children or scouts were called “the scalp” or “the sparrowhawk”.
Will anything change after Olympic inclusion?
Obviously there will be a little more money in circulation, with television rights and various events, and more external promotional material will be produced. The International Federation of American Football (Ifaf) already establishes the official rules of the game, to which the federations can make small changes (uniforms, mouth guards, etc.). Flag football in Italy he grew up quickly (about ten years ago there were around twenty teams, in 2023 there were 51) and now it will have to adapt to Olympic standards.
Previously, the championships were held during the American football break, i.e. from July to October, in an open version (mixed male and female), while now a longer and more organized championship is being structured, from January to October, with more games per team.
Andrea tells me that there is no Paralympic version of flag football, but that he thinks about it every now and then. “We should do some tests, perhaps taking the game to a gym, like wheelchair basketball, or the same wheelchair rugby that existed in Paris, and which is played in mixed teams, male and female, on wheelchairs specially designed”. It will therefore not be in Los Angeles 2028, but we are confident that the new discipline will be born. On the other hand, the number of players could also change, as happened for example in rugby which at the Olympics, instead of 15 or 13 players per team, has 7, with more space and entertainment on the field, and less beatings (and short recoveries, possibility of compacting the championship in the fifteen Olympic days).
All these innovations suggest reflection. In the history of technology, one approach suggests studying human artifacts – “inventions” – in one perspective evolutionary: how biological species can develop in different times and places, hybridize, cooperate, compete, some surviving, some becoming extinct. Artifacts do not suddenly arise by magic, or by strokes of genius, but absorb a memory of the past, evolving into something that was not there. A famous drawing that represents the evolution of weapons for the Australian aborigines explains it:
Even sport, which is a human invention, should be seen in a similar way: continuously evolving within the world, with new disciplines that change, spread or disappear, depending on taste and necessity, from tradition and fashion. And depending on individual characteristics, if we think about new inclusive games designed to involve all types of people together disability. This encourages everyone not to be a passive user, but to live with the spirit of an inventor constantly searching for the light bulb to turn on. From basketball, for example, the baskin he was born like this.
Back to flag football. From the outside it is surprising that it was included in the next Olympic calendar, but it is known how strongly it was sponsored by the American NFL. Here we are content to imagine it as a branch in the evolution of sport, or games in general, to be discovered with the curiosity we have towards things we have never heard of before.
Anyone who, in this post-holiday period, is looking for a physical activity to do throughout the year to keep fit can consider joining some flag football clubs. Maybe he has hidden talents and unexpectedperhaps with four years of hard training California will still be able to secure a place in the Italian selection…
