Touchdown! Future Olympic action comes to Finland with Flag Football World Championships

The next big Olympic sport is finding its feet not at the famed LA Coliseum, and not at Wembley Arena or the Stade de France but in the unpretentious grassy fields of Lahti as hundreds of competitors descend on the city for this year's Flag Football World Championships. 

So what is flag football? The short answer is to think of it as the non-contact version of American football, with fewer players and a shorter match (although there’s a lot more to it than that!), and from 27 August the best teams in the world will be taking part in the tournament, ahead of the sport's inclusion at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. 

"It's always a big thing when there is competition of international level, especially world level in Finland. It's good for Finland both as a country to participate, and as the host nation,” says Roope Noronen, the long-time President of the American Football Association of Finland SAJL, which also governs flag football.

“It's a great opportunity, a lot of work, but the more people you get involved in the sport the more you get visibility and I see a lot of good things around flag football in Finland.”

Although officially there are only a few hundred licensed flag footballers in Finland, Noronen reckons many times that number take part in leisure games. "The total number of players is a lot higher than the licenses," he tells Finland Insider. 

Teams arriving in Lahti

While Lahti has plenty of experience hosting ski and ski jump events, it's the first time hosting such a big flag football competition.

The best teams in the world are putting in an appearance, both men's and women's squads, from 32 countries including the US, UK, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Germany and France arriving at the Pajulahti Olympic Training Centre.

The Finnish women's team are ranked 18th in the world, while the men are ranked 21st. And it’s the women’s team who have brought home the only medals for the home nation: a silver in 2004 and a bronze in 2006.

"I hope the World Championships will be a launching stone for our national teams programme to try and qualify for the Olympics. We know we're not ready yet but we still have some years to go," explains Noronen. 

Flag football will make its Olympic debut in the Southern California sun in four years time, and Roope Noronen - who first got the American football bug during a summer camp stay in the US in the 1980s - says talks are well in hand to ensure the sport is also included in the programme for the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia. 

However the history of the Olympic Games is littered with sports that were once in favour, but were then left out - or sports that were tried once and then never again like pesäpallo at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, or break dancing at this year's games in Paris. 

"It's always a risk to include a new sport. But if you look at the current Olympics, flag football demonstrates Olympic values and good governance. I'm comfortable the work is being done to include flag football in future Olympics and I think they have a good chance of being successful." 

The 2024 Flag Football World Championships take place at the Pajulahti Olympic Training Center in Lahti, from 27 to 30 August.