Host country United States Champions France (1st title) | Venue(s) 4 (in 4 host cities) Runners-up Brazil | |
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Dates (1984-07-29) (1984-08-11)29 July – 11 August 1984
(13 days) Teams 16 (from 5 confederations) | ||
The association football tournament at the 1984 Summer Olympics started on July 29 and ended on August 11. It featured only a men's tournament, as women's football had yet to become an Olympic event. It was the first Olympic football competition in which professionals were allowed. Until then, the amateur-only rule had heavily favored socialist countries from Eastern Europe whose players were professionals in all but name. However, as agreed with FIFA to preserve the primacy of the World Cup, the Olympic competition was restricted to players with no more than five "A" caps at tournament start, regardless of age.
Contents
The football tournament was held in four venues:
The Gold Medal game between France and Brazil at the Rose Bowl attracted an Olympic Games football attendance record of 101,799. Until 2014 this remained the record attendance for a football game in the United States. This broke the previous Olympics record attendance of 100,000 set at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia for the corresponding game of the 1956 Olympic Games played between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The Rose Bowl attendance would remain the Olympic record until 104,098 attended the Gold Medal game of the 2000 Summer Olympics between Cameroon and Spain at the Stadium Australia in Sydney.
The attendance also stood as the highest for a football game in the United States until 109,318 saw Manchester United defeat Real Madrid during the 2014 International Champions Cup at the Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.
Qualifying
Sixteen teams qualified for the Olympic tournament after continental qualifying rounds. Three Warsaw Pact countries had qualified but withdrew as part of the Soviet-led boycott. They were replaced as follows:
Final team rankings
Note: As per statistical convention in football, matches decided in extra time are counted as wins and losses, while matches decided by penalty shoot-outs are counted as draws.
Goalscorers
With five goals, Daniel Xuereb of France, Borislav Cvetković and Stjepan Deverić of Yugoslavia are the top scorers in the tournament. In total, 84 goals were scored by 52 different players, with none of them credited as own goal.
Discipline
In the final tournament, a player was suspended for the subsequent match in the competition for getting a red card. The following twelve players were sent off and suspended during the final tournament: