Football at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's qualification

The women's qualification for football tournament at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

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

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 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.

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