In 1900, football was introduced as an exhibition sport and after that, it became the first team sport included in the Olympic Games. Since 1908, football has been part and parcel at every Olympic Games except for the 1932 Los Angeles Games where it wasn’t held due to various circumstances. Women’s football was added to the official program in 1996 and since then has happened every 4 years.
Even though the first two Olympic Games consisting of football in 1900 and 1904 are not recognised by FIFA, they are still considered as official competitions by the IOC. From 1908 a proper and recognised tournament was organised by the Football Association which had 6 teams. The matches back then were poorly judged and record keeping was not relevant resulting in amateur footballers playing and high scoring games happening now and then. Owing to the Olympic spirit, every country couldn’t send their full team and amateur teams followed, which prompted England to send amateur teams as well, thus winning two tournaments back-to-back.
The 1920s also showed the uprising of other nations in the name of Czechoslovakia, Uruguay and Argentina. This, in turn, led to Uruguay winning both competitions in 1924 and 1928 and after that FIFA became conscious that the Olympic movement was not only hindering the ability of nations to participate on an equal footing but, given that the Olympics only permitted amateurs to participate, did not represent the true strength of the international game. Ultimately it led to the formation of the FIFA World Cup which was held in 1930.
Women’s Involvement:
Women’s football debuted in 1996 with an eight-team competition at the Atlanta Games. Since then, the event has gone from strength to strength, expanding to ten teams at the Athens Games and expanding again to 12 teams in Beijing.
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Format:
For both the men's and women's tournaments, the competition consists of a round-robin group stage followed by a knockout stage. Teams are placed into groups of 4 teams, with each team playing each other team in its group once. Teams earn 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and 0 points for a loss. The top two teams in each group (as well as the top two third-place finishers, in the women's tournament) advance to the knockout rounds. The knockout rounds are a single-elimination tournament consisting of quarterfinals, semi-finals, and the gold and bronze medal matches.
Matches consist of two halves of 45 minutes each. Since 2004, during the knockout rounds, if the match is tied after 90 minutes, two 15-minute halves of extra time are played (extra time is skipped in favour of immediate penalty kicks in the bronze medal match if it is played on the same day in the same stadium as the gold medal match). If the score remains tied, penalty kicks, which is 5 rounds, plus extra rounds if tied, are used to determine the winner.
Medal Tally- as it stands:
There are a total of 34 nations who have won a medal at the competition with 78 medals being awarded within these nations with 26 medals in Gold and Silver and 27 in Bronze (In 1972 the Bronze medals were shared).
Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 Hungary (HUN) 3 1 1 5
2 Great Britain (GBR) 3 0 0 3
3 Argentina (ARG) 2 2 0 4
4 Soviet Union (URS) 2 0 3 5
5 Uruguay (URU) 2 0 0 2
6 Brazil (BRA) 1 3 2 6
7 Yugoslavia (YUG) 1 3 1 5
8 Poland (POL) 1 2 0 3
Spain (ESP) 1 2 0 3
10 East Germany (GDR) 1 1 1 3
Nigeria (NGR) 1 1 1 3
12 Czechoslovakia (TCH) 1 1 0 2
France (FRA) 1 1 0 2
14 Italy (ITA) 1 0 2 3
Sweden (SWE) 1 0 2 3
16 Belgium (BEL) 1 0 1 2
17 Cameroon (CMR) 1 0 0 1
Canada (CAN) 1 0 0 1
Mexico (MEX) 1 0 0 1
20 Denmark (DEN) 0 3 1 4
21 Bulgaria (BUL) 0 1 1 2
United States (USA) 0 1 1 2
23 Austria (AUT) 0 1 0 1
Germany (GER) 0 1 0 1
Paraguay (PAR) 0 1 0 1
Switzerland (SUI) 0 1 0 1
27 Netherlands (NED) 0 0 3 3
28 Chile (CHI) 0 0 1 1
Ghana (GHA) 0 0 1 1
Japan (JPN) 0 0 1 1
Norway (NOR) 0 0 1 1
South Korea (KOR) 0 0 1 1
United Team of Germany (EUA) 0 0 1 1
West Germany (FRG) 0 0 1 1
Totals (34 nations) 26 26 27 79
Read more olympics related stories and records in the Olympics section of Chase Your Sport: Olympics Stories
