USA Soccer has chosen its nationwide flag soccer groups for this season solely.
What these rosters — extra particularly, the lads’s squad — would possibly appear to be earlier than the game makes its Olympic debut on the 2028 Los Angeles Video games stays unknown.
The NFL homeowners are discussing a proposal this week at their spring conferences in Minnesota that might enable gamers below contract to take part in flag soccer on the Olympics.
Ought to the decision be authorized by no less than 24 of the 32 crew homeowners, the league might negotiate with the NFL Gamers Affiliation, Olympic officers and nationwide governing our bodies on the specifics of letting NFL gamers take part.
Scott Hallenbeck, the CEO and government director of USA Soccer, mentioned in a press release the group is “thrilled that the subject shall be mentioned.”
“If participation is authorized, we stand prepared to offer alternatives for NFL gamers to be a part of Group USA and compete alongside established flag soccer stars and talent-transfer athletes from different sports activities,” added Hallenbeck, whose group oversees the choice and coaching of the nationwide groups for worldwide competitions. “We’ll area the most effective crew potential in pursuit of our final objective of incomes two gold medals for the US in flag soccer.”
On Monday, USA Soccer formally introduced the 12-athlete rosters for the 2025 males’s and girls’s flag soccer nationwide groups.
The squads will compete in September on the Worldwide Federation of American Soccer (IFAF) Americas Continental Flag Soccer Championship in Panama. The ladies’s crew additionally will play on the World Video games in Chengdu, China, in August.
In the meanwhile, the lads’s roster options no energetic NFL gamers. There are a number of gamers who performed deal with soccer in faculty.
The NFL has been making a giant push into flag soccer within the hopes of accelerating youth participation and alternatives for ladies within the sport. The league performed a task in serving to the game achieve inclusion into the Los Angeles Olympics.
The U.S. males’s and girls’s squads each received gold medals final season on the IFAF flag soccer world championships in Lahti, Finland. The lads have now received 5 straight IFAF flag soccer world championships, whereas the ladies have received three in a row.
“The depth of expertise in our athlete pool is the most effective it is ever been,” mentioned Eric Mayes, the managing director of excessive efficiency and nationwide groups for USA Soccer.
