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In early June, U Sports announced the introduction of women’s flag football as a pilot sport beginning in the 2027-28 school year. One Western University alumna, Dr. Olivia Ghosh-Swaby, played a major role.
The announcement came as the sport has been growing significantly across the country year over year: U Sports will introduce women’s flag football as a pilot sport beginning in the 2027-28 school year.
The five-year pilot period will allow the sport to build and meet the standards it needs to join U Sports full-time. Flag football will join tennis (2023) as the other sport to be given the ‘pilot’ distinction, which aims to provide emerging sports with national-level support.
And it likely won’t be hard for the sport to meet the standards, as the foundations have already been built so well by the community itself. Flag football is already being played at the varsity level in Quebec (since 2021) within the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ), which marked the first of the four conferences under the U Sports body that the sport debuted at the varsity level.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Collegiate Flag Football Championship, organized by Football Canada, has been held since 2022. The 2026 edition had 11 teams compete, with the University of Montreal winning its fourth championship in five years. The one year they didn’t win, it was another Quebec-based team, College Montmorency, that won, showing what proper funding at the varsity level can achieve. Quebec schools have also repeatedly qualified for the tournament at a higher rate than any other region in the country.
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Western University has played no small role in helping women’s flag football reach this stage in its evolution – especially a name that’s been there since the beginning: Dr. Olivia Ghosh-Swaby.
While completing her Bachelor of Medical Sciences at the school, Ghosh-Swaby founded the Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Football Association (OWIFA) back in 2018.
The pioneering organizer had gotten her start in flag football in middle school. She moved on to play for her high school’s varsity team, at John Fraser Secondary School in Mississauga, where she also played a variety of other sports, including volleyball.
In 2015, Ghosh-Swaby tore her ACL, which shifted her journey away from volleyball. As she was recovering, she was able to return to football, even switching positions from quarterback to wide receiver.
“Oddly enough, I put more strain on my knees,” Ghosh-Swaby said with a laugh. “But I changed the way I train and how I play sport, and my knowledge around it, because of the injury – to be able to play at the highest level.”
Ghosh-Swaby, who followed her undergrad in 2018 with a PhD in Neuroscience in 2025, also from Western, took the task of growing the sport head-on – not just at her school but province-wide.
“I started to take on more of the planning and organizational roles, which included ordering jerseys, tournament registration, and communication with athletes so they knew information about training times,” she said. “So, that started to become a legitimate process where we established a team president.”
In the early stages of Ghosh-Swaby’s involvement, there was little to no support from Western, and the players wore off-brand Mustang logos. Ghosh-Swaby pushed forward, though, continuing to plead with the school for support. She showed the sustainability of the team, as athletes continued to return and new ones constantly showed up.
On her first attempt with the school’s athletic director, Ghosh-Swaby was informed that she would need to be in coordination with provincial organizations and in partnership with them to determine a legitimate way for the team to be supported.
“I did all of those things. In 2018-19, and into 2020, I built the Ontario Women’s Intercollegiate Football Association working with other student leaders and all of the coaches across the universities at the time to create our structure.”
That structure included partnerships with provincial sports organizations, such as Football Ontario (where Ghosh-Swaby now works as the Manager of Flag Football Development), the rule book, season scheduling, specific events, such as championships, and building the brand through a strong social media strategy.
Following the successful work, Ghosh-Swaby met for a third time with the athletic director, and the team got ratified as a club, which began the stages of official university support.
Karen Wong, one of Western’s star players (and a PhD candidate), who joined the team in 2022, heralds Ghosh-Swaby’s hard work and its importance in growing the team.
“I look back and see how far I’ve come now, but it really all started with Olvia,” said Wong. “And it’s the same for a lot of people in the sport now. Being able to see all the hard work that she put in, as well as everyone who is part of OWIFA, Football Ontario, and Football Canada, has been super exciting.”
OWIFA continued to grow, thanks in large part to Ghosh-Swaby’s persistence. She eventually left her role in 2024, leaving the organization in the hands of a board who have continued its growth.
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Partnerships and funding from major corporations have also helped OWIFA get the proper resources to flourish. NFL Canada and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment have been two major partners along the way, providing OWIFA with funding and grants to help run all of its programming.
These partnerships have reached beyond just the provincial level and helped in establishing a national organization, which included adding a national five-on-five tournament – as well as national qualifier events in each province. This helped provide the framework for the eventual U Sports partnership.
When Ghosh-Swaby started OWIFA, there were eight teams. By the time she left, in 2024, it had expanded to 13 universities and two colleges.
“Now knowing that there are partners like NFL Canada that want to help keep growing the game … it’s becoming more of a reality for our athletes that this is going to be the next big sport.”
Working with Football Ontario, Ghosh-Swaby has continued to work with major brands to help bolster the sport into the spotlight.
“When the Detroit Lions came in, I was like, ‘Okay, let’s pitch and get our adult space growing,’ because there was nothing that existed there,” she said.
So, she ended up building a circuit for adults, which now has some athletes trying out for the national team to hopefully qualify for the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in two years.
Meanwhile, Ghosh-Swaby has also developed grassroots programs all over the province to get girls involved in the game at younger ages, as well as a high school provincial championship, which just recently had 45 teams competing in the event.
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And when it came to the U Sports announcement? Naturally, Ghosh-Swaby had direct involvement.
“I initially started the conversation with U Sports in October or November of 2025, as a way to peek in and see if there was any opportunity to add a new sport. Was there interest? And how does that work at the U Sports level?”
A connection with a leader in U Sports from a previous meeting, when they had worked at the OUA, paid off, as that individual remembered all the work Ghosh-Swaby had been putting in back in 2019.
She presented all the information and documentation she had, and he said it was a perfect pitch for what U Sports is looking for to add a sport to their programme.
The application process followed, with Football Canada taking the lead as the national body. Everything was submitted before the deadline in January – including all the documentation Ghosh-Swaby had previously presented.
She wasn’t sure whether the application would get over the line this year, as other sports had also been bidding, including men’s rugby and cricket.
When the news came that it had been approved, it was a major relief – and a bit of a shock – for Ghosh-Swaby, as the continued growth of women’s flag football had reached its highest level yet. At the same time, it was a bit of an “I told you so” moment for the longtime organizer and champion of the sport.
“This really was inevitable,” Ghosh-Swaby said. “If you’ve seen all the work that’s gone into it behind the scenes and chose not to invest, well, look, it’s happening now, so I told you so. I knew this was coming at some point.”
South of the border, flag football has been a major hit in recent years, with over 100 schools planning to compete during the upcoming school year. It has vastly exceeded the 40-school threshold to becoming an NCAA championship sport, which it’s scheduled to do for the first time in 2028.
That’s the same year flag football will debut at the Olympics, something that members of the London flag community have in their sights.
“We still have eyes on Team Canada as well, so I think that’s something we are working towards every single day,” said Wong. “We have a lot of talent here.”
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The current head coach of the Mustangs’ 11vs11 team is Bleska Kambamba, who previously played for Western’s men’s football team, winning a Vanier Cup in 2017. He was later drafted by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the eighth round in 2020.
Kambamba is excited for what the U Sports announcement presents in terms of benefits to students, as it could offer pathways for players to receive scholarships, which could help keep talent within Canada rather than losing players to the NCAA.
First coaching in 2022, Kambamba has experienced major success in the role, including winning multiple championships and a coach of the year award in 2023.
“Some players have reached out and celebrated the moment because it’s a thing to celebrate,” said Kambamba. “It doesn’t change the love or the work, but it definitely changes the direction to varsity, which was what we’ve always talked about and aspired to.”
Ghosh-Swaby, Wong and Kambamba all shared the same excitement and joy that the news offered – not only for them but for the young girls who are just getting into the sport who now have something new they can strive for and find role models in.
“It inspires young girls who want to keep playing,” Ghosh-Swaby said. “It gives them a chance to think of a U Sports athlete that is talented in ways that I’ve never been able to do.”
