The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics takes place on Friday, July 26, but will you be able to get your football fix?
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Hot on the heels of Euro 2024, sports fans have another major event to get their teeth into this summer.
The city of Paris is gearing up to host the Olympic Games, with the opening ceremony taking place on Friday, July 26. The planet's sporting elite will descend on the French capital and over two-and-a-half weeks we will see more than 10,000 athletes from 206 nations take part in 329 events over 32 sports.
But as we're a football publication, we're here to answer that obvious question - does this include football? FourFourTwo takes a look...
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Is football played at the Olympic games?
Spain celebrate their gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Games (Image credit: Getty Images)
The answer here is a resounding yes, as there are both men and women's tournaments taking place in France this summer.
Men's football has been played at every Olympics since the second edition of the modern games in 1900, with the exception of the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, as FIFA was trying to get their new World Cup off the ground.
Football has a rich and varied history at the Olympics, with Great Britain winning three of the first four gold medals, back in the days when Team GB put forward a team. The 1920s saw Uruguay's rise and by 1928 football was actually the most popular event at the Games, prior to the first World Cup two years later.
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Team GB celebrate (Image credit: Getty)
The Soviet Bloc would dominate the tournament after World War II and after various rule changes relating to the amateur versus professional player debate, the tournament became an under-23s competition in 1992, with three overage players being permitted from 1996, a format it keeps to this day.
The women's tournament began in 1996 and is a full senior competition with no such restrictions. The USA have dominated the event, winning four of the first five competitions.
What will the football tournament look like at the Paris Olympics?
The Parc des Princes hosts the two gold medal matches (Image credit: Richard Sellers)
The men's tournament will kick off two days before the official opening ceremony, as it starts on Wednesday, July 24. Guinea vs New Zealand will be the first match in Nice, with hosts France taking on the USA later that evening in Marseille, with matches also being held in Lyon, Paris, Bordeaux, Saint-Etienne and Nantes.
There will be four groups of four, with the top two qualifying for the quarter-finals. The gold medal match takes place at the Parc des Princes in Paris on August 9.
The women's tournament kicks off a day later and features three groups of four teams, with the top two, plus the two best third-place teams getting through to the knockout stages. The gold medal match will be played the day after the men's, at the same venue.
For more than a decade Joe Mewis has worked in football journalism as a reporter and editor, with stints at Mirror Football and LeedsLive among others. He is the author of four football history books that include times on Leeds United and the England national team.
