Sky Sports NFL's new series NFL to the World looks at how American football has expanded beyond the United States ; we meet Geraint Griffiths, the man leading the charge for a dream place for wheelchair American football teams at the Paralympic Games.
Cameron Hogwood
Pictured: Meet Geraint Griffiths, the man who led the way in bringing American wheelchair football to the world stage.
Soccer is going through a historic period, rapidly gaining popularity on the world stage. The possibilities are endless, and all formats of the American game are hungry for success.
The NFL continues to expand its international roster of regular-season host cities, while flag football prepares for its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028. Elsewhere, American wheelchair football begins its fight for a place on the Paralympic horizon.
Shortly before the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a standstill, longtime Raiders fan Geraint Griffiths found himself in a café next to an ice rink, watching a game of wheelchair basketball. So vast was the skill set, so lacking was the football equivalent, that a light bulb went off; Griffiths, the general manager of British club Chester Romans, decided to build a wheelchair football empire, starting from the grassroots and aiming to reach the world.
The pandemic provided an opportunity to develop and refine official rules. And by February 2024, the evolution of British wheelchair football was showcased in Nickelodeon’s Super Bowl special Slimetime.
As flag football continues to thrive as one of the fastest growing sports in the world, Griffiths – BAFA's Disability and Wheelchair Football Commissioner – plans to follow suit.
“Once the flag gets to the Olympics, I'll be able to take the finished design and the working design and say, 'Here's a couple of versions of the flag,'” he told Sky Sports.
“Every sport that is in the Olympics has a Paralympic version. For us, as for the UK, to be able to turn around and say, 'Here's a model of the game that works' means the UK will be a world leader in a sport that doesn't work for us.”
“It will be a huge honor and a legacy that I will leave behind. I have a wonderful team of volunteers who work with me.”
The Nickelodeon series aired four times over Super Bowl weekend in 2024. BAFA has since approved official rules for the UK. Griffiths pitched the idea of wheelchair football to all 74 member countries of the International Federation of American Football at its annual congress in Switzerland. The federation has also been asked to put together a proposal for an exhibition match at the Invictus Games in Birmingham in 2027. He’s not wasting time thinking about it, and neither is the sport itself.
“It's something that people want,” Griffiths said. “And I think it's something that the disability community needs as well. There aren't enough opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in sports.”
“Currently, only one in four people with disabilities actually plays sports. Three out of four want to do it, but do not have the opportunity.
“It’s also a sport where no one would ever say, ‘I’m in a wheelchair, I’m disabled, I’m an amputee, and I’m going to play American football,’ those two things never really went together.”
Griffiths explains that two teams are currently in training and a further four are in the process of being formed in addition to the Road to Birmingham club in connection with the proposed showcase at the Invictus Games, the idea being to then cement wheelchair football's place as a major sport at the 2029 Games.
“We want to have three teams from the Midlands and above, and three teams from the Midlands below,” he explained. “Ideally they'll have a couple of weekend tournaments this year and then we can have the first ever Wheelchair Football Super Cup, with the best teams from the north taking on the best teams from the south.”
Internationally, Austria has reached out, they are very keen to start promoting the project and performing. I have spoken to Australia, Ghana, Uganda, Italy, Holland, Canada, so there is a lot of interest from all over the world to participate in this project.
Griffiths cites the story of a former London Monarchs player who found his way back to sport through wheelchair football after losing his legs in combat.
“I never got to say goodbye, and now I don't need to,” Griffiths recalls him saying.
He also credits Dave Thompson MBE, chief executive of the Warrington Disability Partnership, whose discovery of wheelchair football inspired him to return to the sport after becoming paralysed while playing in the 1980s.
“He came to my first game at Warrington about four years ago. That was the first time he picked up a football and started throwing it at the goal,” Griffiths says.
His son was standing next to me and was just stunned. He told me that his father hadn't picked up a football for almost 20 years. It was just unbelievable.
Sure, the platform and scale that the Invictus Games or the Paralympics promises feels like a springboard. But Griffiths is also keen to ensure greater accessibility and participation from the bottom up, which remains his primary goal.
For him, the beauty is in being able to reach every demographic and background.
“Another of my fondest memories is from my very first event in Kent. A group of palliative care nurses came up to me and said how much they loved the nets we threw balls into during training sessions.
They said they had a lot of men in their home who were nearing the end of their lives and who may have played sports in the past and thought something like this might bring back some nice positive memories for them.
“I told them they could throw anything into the net, whether it was a soccer ball, a tennis ball or a football, and at the end of the event they bought two nets online to start using at home.
“It really touched me. And I think that's one of the things I'll never forget: what American football does to a person. And it had a huge positive impact on a lot of people who were in that nursing home. It was really powerful.”
MOVE United oversees the USA Wheelchair Football League, which exists in part thanks to a grant from the NFL and the Bob Woodruff Foundation through the Salute to Service program. The league consists of 14 NFL-affiliated national teams that play on a rectangular field measuring 228 feet (71 m) long and 66 feet (20 m) wide.
Griffiths, meanwhile, decided to shrink the playing field to the size of a basketball in his BAFA-approved rules, both for safety reasons and to create a more technical game, less reliant on long shots and fast wheelchair players. The smaller field size also makes the sport accessible around the world, with a basketball-sized court in every country, and helps the game grow more sustainably.
BAFA has committed part of its grant to Sport England to further develop the game, while universities and the PUKDS police are keen to offer free services to their sports centres.
“It's hard to grow financially, but the more people see that, the more opportunities there are,” Griffiths continued.
“I'd like the Jaguars to become a kind of Team Great Britain because they're one of the teams in America that doesn't have a wheelchair team.
“I think it would be great if they had a competitive league and maybe they came back or they became the first NFL team to support the British version of the sport.”
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In Griffiths' improved model, the fumble was removed due to safety concerns associated with fingers attempting to reach for loose balls while kicks were being taken, and teams consisted of seven players on each side, including only one healthy player on the court at a time.
Previously, there was some discussion about removing helmets due to back and neck problems, but feedback has shown that they should be kept so that players can feel like they are playing real football. As a result, the weight of helmets is now being looked at to ensure that they meet the needs of players with back or neck problems in particular.
Wheelchairs, meanwhile, remain the biggest and most pressing expense, and some manufacturers have indicated their interest in providing support in the future. At the same time, basketball players rely on standard basketball wheelchairs as a cost-effective solution to help them progress in their game.
Griffiths sketched out a plan and orchestrated its launch to take wheelchair football to the brink of global recognition, a potential showcase match at the Invictus Games tantalising as a major step towards the project's next lofty goal.
“The flag is just, well, it’s just going to explode,” Griffiths says. “And just being able to present the Olympic Committee with a finished product that’s been shown not just in a couple of countries but internationally, even if I could just show it at the Paralympics or something.”
“It will be 2032 in Brisbane. I think that's what I'm aiming for now – to show off at the 1932 Paralympics. And then I can sit back and watch things unfold.”
Football is changing. The world is listening and fighting for its attention. And under Griffiths's guidance, the sport for wheelchair users is steadily gaining popularity.
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Sourse: skysports.com
