Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's qualification

Qualifications

A total of twelve teams will participate in the finals of the Olympic tournament for women. These finalists were:

UEFA (Europe)

UEFA announced that the 2007 Women's World Cup in the People's Republic of China will also serve as the qualifying tournament for the Olympics. Originally it was thought that, should England make the top three European teams, they would compete under the United Kingdom banner. However, on 6 September 2007, FIFA issued a press release indicating that England are ineligible to participate in the 2008 Olympics as England does not have its own Olympic Committee. [2]

There has been some further confusion over the identity of the UEFA qualifiers stemming from conflicting media releases from UEFA and FIFA. The FIFA release noted that "teams eliminated at the end of the group phase will have the same ranking irrespective of their position, number of points or goal differences" implying that Sweden and Denmark will require a playoff for the final qualification spot. While UEFA initially stated that no playoff was required [3], this was amended fairly rapidly [4].

CONMEBOL (South America)

CONMEBOL announced that the 2006 Sudamericano Femenino in Argentina would also serve as the qualifying tournament for the Olympics. Argentina won the tournament, and qualified for the Olympics. The runners-up Brazil advanced to the inter-continental play-off.

Central America

Two home and away series will be played, with the winners moving on to the final round. The first leg will play on October 6, 2007. The second leg will play on October 13, 2007. The winners of the ties will play in the decisive final round on October 20 and October 27, 2007.

Panama withdrew from their scheduled match against Costa Rica, so Costa Rica advance to the 2nd Round where they will play the winner of El Salvador v Nicaragua.

Caribbean

The system is a two round single round robin format, in October. Four groups will play the first round (3 groups of 4 and one group of 3), with the winners moving on to a second round group.

Group 1 (in Suriname)

October 2, 2007

October 4, 2007

October 7, 2007

Group 2 (in Dominican Republic)

October 3, 2007

October 5, 2007

October 7, 2007

Group 3 (in Antigua and Barbuda)

October 3, 2007

October 5, 2007

October 7, 2007

Group 4 (in Cayman Islands)

October 24, 2007

October 26, 2007

October 28, 2007

Second Round

The 4 remaining teams were drawn into 2 pairings. The winners of each tie will progress to the CONCACAF Finals. Both Puerto Rico v Trinidad & Tobago matches will be played in Puerto Rico on 23 & 25 November 2007. Cuba will play both legs at home against Jamaica on 29 November and 1 December 2007, with the second match counting as Jamaica's home match for away goals purposes.

Final Round

6 teams will qualify for the final round. The final round will be held at the Estadio Olímpico Universitario in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, from April 2–13. The draw was held at 11:00 am (EST) on February 25.

Group A

April 2, 2008

April 4, 2008

April 6, 2008

Group B

April 2, 2008

April 4, 2008

April 6, 2008

Semifinals/Qualifiers

Played 9 April 2008

Final

Played 12 April 2008. Both USA and Canada already qualified for 2008 Olympic women's football tournament.

CAF (Africa)

Preliminary competition was divided in four rounds. First three rounds was knock-out rounds, and the final round was a group stage.

The winners of the final round would qualify for the Olympics. The runners-up of the round would advance to inter-continental play-off.

Preliminary Round

First leg played from October 27 to October 29, 2006. Second leg played from November 10 to November 12, 2006.

First Round

First leg played on February 17 and February 18, 2007. Second leg will play from March 9 to March 11, 2007. Eritrea and Morocco will play their matches on March 10 and March 24, 2007. Guinea and Zimbabwe only played one leg in Zimbabwe due to political unrest in Guinea.

Second Round

First leg played from June 1 to June 3, 2007. Second leg played from June 15 to June 17, 2007.

Final Round

Matches played between July 27, 2007 and March 14, 2008. Ethiopia withdrew.

July 28, 2007

August 12, 2007

August 26, 2007

December 9, 2007

February 16, 2008

March 15, 2008

Nigeria qualified for the Olympics. Ghana advanced to the inter-continental play-off.

AFC (Asia)

China was automatically qualified for the Olympics as host.

First Round

Japan and North Korea received bye for the final round. Other 12 teams are divided into 3 groups, where top two teams in each group would advance to the final round.

Group A was played as a knockout tournament of two-legged (Home&Away) matches. Each of Group B and Group C was played as a single round robin.

Group A

First leg played on February 17, 2007. Second leg played on February 25, 2007.

Hong Kong through to the final after Jordan withdrew from the tournament. The final first and second leg played on March 10, 2007 and March 18, 2007 respectively.

Group B

All matches were held at Thai-Japanese Stadium (Bangkok, Thailand).

February 19, 2007

February 21, 2007

February 23, 2007

Group C

All matches were held at Zhongshan Soccer Stadium (Taipei, Taiwan).

February 21, 2007

February 23, 2007

February 25, 2007

Final Round

Group winners would qualify for the Olympics. Matches played from April 7 to August 12, 2007.

Group B

April 7, 2007

April 15, 2007

June 3, 2007

June 10, 2007

August 4, 2007

August 12, 2007

OFC (Oceania)

The 2007 Pacific Games was played as the first part of Oceania qualification for the 2008 Olympics. The winners of the Pacific Games, Papua New Guinea, met New Zealand in a playoff in March 2008 for a place in the Olympic Games Finals. This had originally been scheduled over two legs (on 8 March and 12 March) but the New Zealand leg was cancelled by mutual consent, leaving a single play-off match in Papua New Guinea.

Inter-continental play-off

An inter-continental play-off was to held between the second placed South American and African teams, which were Brazil and Ghana, respectively.

The play-off was held as one match on Workers Stadium in Beijing on April 19, 2008. Brazil beat Ghana for the final spot in the Olympics.