Lacrosse is coming to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but there’s already a complicated and emotional storyline playing out: Will the Haudenosaunee Confederacy – the originators of the thousand-year-old sport – be included when lacrosse returns to the Olympics?
It’s the subject of a decades-long bureaucratic, diplomatic and moral negotiation. If this unprecedented effort succeeds, the Haudenosaunee – full of players from Upstate New York – would be the first North American Indigenous nation to play under its own flag at the Olympics.
If the effort fails, it presents the prospect of an embarrassing cultural slight and the omission of some of lacrosse’s best players from what is supposed to be a global spotlight moment for the sport.
“I just think it’s hard to have lacrosse in the Olympics without the originators of the game present,” Haudenosaunee Nationals executive director Lisa Sacco said. “So I think it would be a disservice to the lacrosse community if we weren‘t represented.”
The Haudenosaunee believe they have a unique case for why they should be included in LA 2028’s lacrosse program. They introduced the sport to the world, it holds immense spiritual meaning to them and they consistently medal in international competition.
The International Olympic Committee has thus far said it will not allow the Haudenosaunee to participate under its own flag at the Olympics. Its eligibility rules state that countries can only participate if they have a National Olympic Committee (NOC), which requires recognition by the international community and acceptance by the IOC.
This is the question at the heart of the Haudenosaunee Olympic movement
The Haudenosaunee’s quest to participate in men‘s and women‘s lacrosse in Los Angeles is tied to the confederacy’s pursuit to be recognized as a sovereign nation. The IOC’s position is that it is up to the American and Canadian Olympic committees to allow Haudenosaunee players to participate on their teams, depending on which country the player has a passport from.
But that’s another question rife with political issues. The Haudenosaunee – a confederacy made up of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations in Upstate New York and Ontario, Canada – falls in a gray area amidst the established international ideas of what constitutes a nation. They have their own passports and contend that they’re a sovereign nation because they have treaties with the U.S., Great Britain and France, but many countries do not recognize them as such.
“There’s not a box for us to check,” Haudenosaunee men’s team head coach Rex Lyons said. “We are not recognized by the UN as a nation-state. So politically, we’re kind of an outlier. And it makes things challenging.”
It’s unlikely any Haudenosaunee players would move to the Canadian or American teams.
“We all said hell no,” said Bean Minerd, a player on the women’s team. Larson Sundown, a player on the men’s team, said he would not switch.
“Our people have fought and died for us at this point in 2025 to be standing here and saying we’re a sovereign people and we’re still here,” said Sundown, who had family members put into the notorious residential schools.
“I think it would be a disservice to those individuals who fought for us to be here if we went and represented a country that tried to abolish them or tried to get rid of them.”
In the final week of the Biden administration, the U.S. and Canadian governments released a joint statement calling on the IOC to allow the Haudenosaunee to be eligible to qualify for the games under its own flag.
But both countries have changed leadership since, and the Haudenosaunee have not yet had any contact with either new administration, Sacco said.
International sport has also undergone recent leadership changes.
On March 20, the IOC elected a new president, former Zimbabwe swimmer Kirsty Coventry. Discussions between Coventry and Casey Wasserman, chairman of the LA 2028 organizing committee, will be crucial to the Haudenosaunee’s bid. The Haudenosaunee have met with Wasserman over Zoom before.
Ahead of the IOC presidential elections, the Haudenosaunee sent a letter to Coventry and received a response from her saying she’d be willing to meet with them if she won. Coventry takes office June 23.
The Haudenosaunee are in a holding pattern. Their fate, and the possibility of an exemption to the Olympic rules, may be in Coventry and Wasserman‘s hands.
Here’s what you need to know about the Haudenosaunee pursuit for eligibility in the 2028 LA Olympics:
Why is lacrosse in the Olympics?
In every Olympics, the host city gets to choose a selection of sports to add.
The new sports are typically associated with the host’s national heritage. In 2028, LA will add lacrosse, flag football, cricket, squash, baseball and softball. Lacrosse’s unique history was a central part of the pitch by World Lacrosse, the world governing body for the sport, to bring lacrosse back to the Olympics.
“If it wasn’t for the Creator giving us the game,” Minerd said, “they wouldn’t be playing at this level, and being able to go to the Olympics with this.”
Men‘s lacrosse appeared as a medal event in the 1904 St. Louis and 1908 London Olympics and was played as a demonstration event in the 1928 Amsterdam Games, the 1932 Los Angeles Games and the 1948 London Games.
At the 1904 St. Louis games, Canada sent two lacrosse teams under the Canadian flag. One of them was made up of Mohawk Indigenous people, and they won bronze. In the 1932 Olympics, where lacrosse was not a medal event, seven American colleges and an all-star team of Haudenosaunee players competed.
“It’s going to be in the United States, which is our homelands,” Sacco said. “We are the originators and this is our homeland. So it’s a win-win, I think, for everybody … but there are lots of things at play that we have to just make sure that we’re doing things the right way.”
The lacrosse that will be played in Los Angeles will look very different from the game fans are used to watching and the Haudenosaunee are used to playing.
The Olympics won‘t feature field lacrosse or box lacrosse. It’ll be sixes, a format created in 2018 by World Lacrosse. Sixes employs six players per side, like box lacrosse, but uses a field about two-thirds as large as field lacrosse. The shot clock is 30 seconds, as opposed to 80 or 90 for collegiate field lacrosse, and the game is much more about speed and transition play.
This version of the game was created partially as a way to appeal to Olympic organizers who wanted to reduce the numbers needed to play in LA. The IOC has a preferred limit of 10,500 total athletes for the Games, and sports like lacrosse that are not permanent members receive fewer teams and players.
Do the Haudenosaunee have a good chance of qualifying?
Any ruling from the IOC would not automatically place the Haudenosaunee in the Olympics. It would make them eligible to qualify, which could be based on placing at the 2027 World Lacrosse Sixes Championships.
“Because we are the creators of the game does not mean that we shouldn‘t be treated like any other group,” former Haudenosaunee Nationals executive director Leo Nolan said. “You got to compete, you got to qualify.”
The Olympic field will contain six teams, but Olympic rules require a balance of countries from around the globe. The Haudenosaunee could face continental competition for a spot from the U.S., which is automatically qualified as the host nation, as well as Canada.
It’s possible three teams from North America could make the field, but it’s also possible only two are chosen, which could leave the Haudenosaunee out.
Sixes has only been contested internationally once, at the 2022 World Games. The Haudenosaunee men‘s team placed fifth and the women‘s team finished eighth.
But in international field and box lacrosse competition, the Haudenosaunee have consistently medaled, despite a player pool of mere hundreds compared to the hundreds of thousands the U.S. and Canada can pick from.
The men have taken bronze behind the U.S. and Canada at each of the last three World Lacrosse Championships, and both men‘s and women‘s teams won bronze medals at the 2024 World Lacrosse Box Championships in Utica.
“They want the best athletes to represent every sport,” Nolan said. “We have some of the best athletes who can represent lacrosse.”
The Haudenosaunee joined World Lacrosse as its fifth member in 1985 and are the only Indigenous nation with recognition by their sport’s world governing body. They hosted the 2015 World Lacrosse Championships at the Onondaga Nation, the first time a major sports tournament was held on Indigenous sovereign territory.
“This is just kind of mind-blowing, just being an Onondaga, coming from Onondaga,” Lyons said. “This is our game. It’s kind of our gift to the world and it’s just exploding.”
Current SU attack Trey Deere and Orange alumni Cody Jamieson, Randy Staats, Brendan Bomberry, Warren Hill and Jeremy Thompson all have a chance to be on the Haudenosaunee roster in 2028. Lyle Thompson, who won the Tewaaraton Award twice at the University at Albany and is considered possibly the greatest lacrosse player of his generation, is Onondaga and could also be part of the roster.
Have the Haudenosaunee been denied eligibility before?
The World Games, which are governed by the same eligibility rules as the Olympics, hosted lacrosse for the first time in 2022. Qualification was based on the results from the most recent World Lacrosse Championships, where the Haudenosaunee men took bronze. But although they qualified, the Haudenosaunee were ruled ineligible by the World Games because they didn‘t have an NOC.
After an international outcry and a change.org petition that drew over 50,000 signatures, the World Games reversed their decision and allowed the Haudenosaunee to play.
Ireland Lacrosse CEO Michael Kennedy, whose team vacated their spot so the Haudenosaunee could play, said he felt a “very, very strong” sentiment among his squad and others that if the Haudenosaunee were barred, teams would “100%” boycott the competition.
People familiar with the Haudenosaunee’s bid worry about a larger protest if the Haudenosaunee are excluded from the Olympics.
How can the Haudenosaunee gain eligibility?
The formal process for setting up an NOC requires recognition as an independent country by the international community and membership in five world governing bodies.
There are instances of dependent territories with NOCs, but since an amendment to the Olympic charter in 1996, NOC recognition can only be granted after recognition as an independent country by the international community. Dependent territories like Guam, Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands have recognized NOCs because they were grandfathered into the rule.
“One thing that I also think that’s really important about this is respecting the IOC rules, because the Olympics has been going on for a long time,” Sundown said. “… Obviously, I want my nation involved, but I do want there to be a level of fairness for all countries who partake in the Olympics, because it is a global event and it’s just not about lacrosse.”
Why would the IOC make an exception?
Lacrosse is sometimes called the medicine game because of the Haudenosaunee belief that it provides medicine to those who play it. Traditionally, sticks are hickory, which represents the connection to Mother Earth; the netting is deer sinew, to represent the animal nation; the weave represents cooperation between clans; the eyelets represent families; and the ball represents medicine.
The Haudenosaunee are historically known to have the best stick skills of any team and their distinctive style of play is recognized for its creativity.
“When I explain to people who don‘t know anything about lacrosse,” Kennedy said. “The thing I usually say to them is that the Haudenosaunee are to lacrosse what Brazil is to soccer.”
The Haudenosaunee say their connection to lacrosse is unlike any connection any other culture has with any other sport. They say lacrosse was given to them by the Creator a thousand years ago.
Educating people about the Haudenosaunee and their connection to the game could be a selling point for the IOC as the sport becomes more popular. Lacrosse is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world.
“We can tell our story and tell the game’s story,” Sundown said. “And in all honesty, there’s no one better to tell it than us.”
Doling out any sort of rules exception could have significant political consequences. The IOC is wary of setting any sort of precedent for future exceptions.
But the Haudenosaunee contend that they’re a unique case.
They’re the only Indigenous nation with recognition by their sport’s world governing body. They are one of, if not the only, Indigenous nations to not receive money or leaders from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said Joe Heath, general counsel for the Onondaga Nation. They have operated under the same original treaties and the same uncompromised ancient form of government, including a traditionally selected Council of Chiefs, for hundreds of years.
“We’re trying not to draw any lines in the sand or be combative or confrontational. It’s always about we’re putting our best foot forward,” Lyons said. “And there is no downside. That’s our whole position. There is no downside to having the Haudenosaunee.”
The IOC has a long-standing position on political neutrality. The Haudenosaunee are looking to use the platform of the Olympics to advocate for their own sovereignty. The IOC may be reluctant to spark any sort of political conversation.
Some organizers are worried that controversy over the Haudenosaunee’s inclusion could preclude lacrosse’s permanent membership as an Olympic sport.
“As someone who’s been playing this game as long as I can remember, all I want to see is for it to be played on the world stage,” Sundown said. “I obviously want my nation a part of it, but I love lacrosse, and I only want it to be the best it can be. And if it means the Olympics without us, that’s a pill I’m willing to swallow, something I’m willing to sacrifice. Because ultimately, it will still do good.
“It may not do as much as I would like if we were involved, but there is still good that will come out of it.”
No countries have come out in opposition to the Haudenosaunee’s Olympic movement and most likely none will, though some may covet the spot that would open if the Haudenosaunee are ruled ineligible.
Coventry, the first woman and first African to be elected IOC president, spoke of breaking glass ceilings and embracing diversity in her acceptance speech. Allowing the Haudenosaunee to play could be a step toward that, but she may be reluctant to make such a big decision so soon.
The Haudenosaunee could be invited to play not under their own flag but under the Olympic flag, like the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016, 2020 and 2024 Olympics. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, athletes from Russia and Belarus were considered individual neutral athletes at the 2024 Paris Games and will retain that status at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games.
A scenario where the Haudenosaunee would have to choose between missing the Games or participating under a neutral flag is one that no one wants to think about. Some argue that the Olympic stage is worth it, but others say that playing under any flag but the Haudenosaunee’s would be a form of forced assimilation.
The Haudenosaunee want to play the Creator’s game, the medicine game, under the same flag their ancestors did.
“Lacrosse is part of who we are,” Jimerson said. “So you’re not gonna take it and not take us with it, because you can‘t be about us without us, right?”