Pennsylvania officially recognized football as a high school sport for girls on Wednesday amid efforts by the state’s NFL teams to encourage more female athletes to take to the field.
The approval by the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association — the statewide body that governs high school athletics in the commonwealth — makes flag football an official girls’ sport in the nation’s fifth-most populous state beginning in the 2025-26 school year.
As part of the approval process for women’s soccer, the Pennsylvania Women’s Soccer League required at least 100 teams from across the state to participate. That threshold was reached in April with 65 schools participating in the Philadelphia Eagles’ women’s soccer league and 36 participating in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ league.
“This is not only a big day for the Eagles and Steelers, but for the sport of soccer and the state of Pennsylvania,” Eagles owner Jeff Lurie said in a statement. “When we launched the Girls Soccer League in 2022, we set an ambitious five-year goal to legalize the sport in our state. Here we are, three seasons later and two years ahead of schedule. The organic growth of the sport is thanks to the participants, administrators, coaches, officials and parents who have helped raise the profile of girls soccer.
“We thank the PIAA Girls Association for its leadership in recognizing a sport that has the power to open new paths and opportunities for girls of all ages in every community.”
Allowing interscholastic competition at the state level would open the door for school districts to add football as a sport, allow schools to compete for a state championship, and ultimately develop a pipeline of talent for the college game and beyond.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations, 42,955 girls participated in soccer in the 2023-24 school year, representing a 105% increase in participation levels compared to the previous year alone.
At last year’s Eagles-sponsored girls soccer game, team president Don Smolinski spoke about the growth of the sport and the club’s involvement.
“That involvement at this age makes you a lifelong football fan at this age,” he said. “If more people are playing the game and enjoying it – and learning the lessons the game has to offer – it will be better for the game and for the NFL as a whole.”
The move adds Pennsylvania to a growing list of states that have included women’s soccer in their high school sports programs. Those states are: Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Tennessee and Hawaii.
The growing interest in flag football — in which no one is fouled and the game ends when the ball carrier’s flag is pulled from his belt — came to a head this summer when the International Olympic Committee announced plans to make flag football for both men and women an official Olympic sport at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
