Producing table for .docx output with superscripts in footnote rmarkdown

I like using flextable for tables when knitting to word. In this table I want to put superscripts in the footnote. For pdf outputs I use kableExtra and put the relevant text for the foot note as bookdown style reference (also helpful if I want to include a citation to bibliography in the footnote). I've tried something similar with flextable but doesn't work.

Code chunk attempts:

{r tab1}
flextable::flextable(iris)%>%
add_footer_lines("My footnotes with ^supercript^ text")

This doesn't work so tried

(ref:footnote) My footnotes with ^supercript^ text with reference @paper2023

{r tab1}
flextable::flextable(iris)%>%
add_footer_lines('ref:footnote')

How can I produce a table in a word document, with superscripts and citations in a footnote? Happy to consider other packages than flextable

There is no support for pandoc citations (flextable does not use pandoc).

---
title: "Untitled"
output: word_document
---

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
```

```{r}
library(flextable)
ft <- qflextable(head(iris)) |> 
  add_footer_lines(
    as_paragraph(
      "My footnotes with ",
      as_sup("supercript"),
      " text"
    )
)
ft
```