Compare https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1913399#c1 where we described our plan to keep v1alpha1 support in 4.8 for smooth upgrades.
flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1alpha1 API was deprecated in k8s 1.20 (OCP 4.7) with replacement v1beta1 available [1]. In k8s 1.21 (OCP 4.8) that API is entirely removed and can't be easily turned back due to the mechanisms implemented upstream disabling removed API. [1] https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/release-1.21/staging/src/k8s.io/api/flowcontrol/v1alpha1/types.go#L63-L66