American football at the Summer Olympics | |
---|---|
IOC Code | AFB |
Governing body | IFAF |
Events | 1 (men) |
Summer Olympics | |
Note: demonstration or exhibition sport years indicated in italics | |
American football was featured in the Summer Olympic Games demonstration programme in 1904 and 1932.[1] College football was played at the 1904 Olympics, which was played at Francis Field,[2] but was, in reality, college teams playing each other as part of their regular seasons.[3] The sport was eventually played officially as a demonstration sport only once, in 1932.[4] Though American football has not been played in the Olympics since then, various American football players have participated in the Olympics.[5] The International Federation of American Football (IFAF) oversees the IFAF World Championship, which is an international tournament, which itself is held every four years.[6]
In 2013, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) gave provisional recognition to the IFAF, setting up a possible vote on its future participation in the Olympics. However in 2015, the IOC rejected the IFAF's application to include American football at the 2020 Summer Olympics.[7][8] The IFAF subsequently launched efforts to instead include flag football at the Summer Olympics, the non-contact variant of American football where players pull off flags from the ball carrier instead of tackling them, which the IOC eventually approved in 2023 to include at the 2028 Summer Games.[9]
flag football 2028
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).