There are 12 teams taking part in the women’s football tournament at the Tokyo Olympics, and a further four in the men’s.
Both feature representatives from all six confederations – UEFA (Europe), CAF (Africa), OFC (Oceania), AFC (Asia), CONMEBOL (South America) and CONCACAF (North America).
While the women’s tournament has no age limit, all men’s players must have been born on or before 1 January 1997, with the exception of a maximum of three overage players per team.
Because of this age limit, qualification for the men’s tournament is based on performance in youth competitions.
France, Germany, Romania and Spain qualified for the Olympics as the four best-performing teams at the European Under-21 Championship held in 2019.
Likewise, the three best teams from both the Africa Under-23 Cup of Nations and the AFC Under-23 Championship also qualified.
In contrast, OFC, CONMEBOL and CONCACAF each staged specific tournaments to decide their qualifiers.
As hosts, Japan qualified automatically for both the men’s and women’s tournaments.
Because there’s no age limit in the women’s tournament, qualification was based on the performances of each country’s senior national team.
Brazil and New Zealand qualified as winners of the 2018 Copa America and OFC Nations Cup respectively.
CAF, AFC and CONCACAF all staged separate tournaments to decide their qualifiers.
UEFA’s three representatives – Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden – qualified courtesy of their performance in the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
It was agreed between the home nations that Great Britain would be judged on how England fared at the tournament, in which they reached the semi-finals under Phil Neville.
The final spot at the Tokyo games was decided by a two-legged play-off between the runners-up from CAF (Cameroon) and CONMEBOL (Chile).
Chile emerged victorious thanks to a 2-1 win on aggregate, with both matches played in Turkey earlier this year after a couple of postponements.
