The IOC has added flag football to the program of the 2028 Olympic Games. The friendlier form of American football is hardly practiced in the Netherlands. Eindhoven Raptors has been offering flag football for twenty years, but there are no members who practice the sport competitively yet.
Flag football is a slimmed down form of American football. Instead of players tackling each other, they take ribbons from each other’s belts.
The sport is extremely popular in America, which is why it has been added to the program of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028. The sport is still unknown in the Netherlands. Because although you have been able to play flag football at the Raptors for twenty years, no one has done so yet.
“Everyone still plays American football here,” explains Frits Breij of Eindhoven Raptors. “That competition also runs at the same time as the flag football competition, which is why it is not yet that popular here.”
“We still can’t form a team.”
But according to Frits, that may change. “There is more and more information about flag football, but we still cannot form a team. American Football players who have been injured also hesitate to switch to the ‘friendlier’ flag football.”
In flag football you play five against five and there is no physical contact at all. The players wear a ribbon on the left and right that can be taken off. When that happens, the game stops and the attack stops. Furthermore, just like in American football, you can score a point by bringing the oval ball to the other side of the playing field.
“Flag football is a nice alternative.”
Outside the regular season, Frits sometimes plays flag football with his team. They will soon go to a tournament in Amsterdam with eleven players, who normally play American football. The 26-year-old Eindhoven resident does not want to make the switch yet. “But out of season, flag football is a nice alternative. It is less of a burden on your body. That does attract certain members.”
Yet he says in the radio program WAKE! on Omroep Brabant that he might make a switch now that it is becoming an Olympic sport. “It depends a bit on how many countries are allowed to participate. If only eight are allowed to participate, it will be difficult to qualify as the Netherlands. But we have a chance with sixteen countries. Then I cannot rule out that it will sound like Wilhelmus.”
The video below explains the rules of flag football:
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