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October 13, 2003

Athens 2004 Olympic Games Football Tournament qualifying information

There will be ten teams playing in Greece between the 11th. and 26th. of August 2004

The group stages will be played with two groups of three and one group of four, with eight teams advancing to the knockout quarter-final stage. The new schedule has women's group round games as double-headers with men's matches. The women's Final is set for Thursday, August 26, 2004 at 21:00 hours in the Athens football venue at Karaiskaki.

The Sydney 2000 winners Norway will not be present to defend their title.

Ten Teams

Host               

Greece

UEFA Two places   

Sweden and Germany have automatically qualified because of their World Cup finish

CONCACAF Two places

Final qualifying tournament for two places will take place from 25th.February -7th. of March, 2004 in Costa Rica.

Canada and the USA plus host Costa Rica receive a bye to the eight-team tournament.

The three three-team round robin tournaments will be as follows:

December 10-14, 2003

Honduras (host) Mexico and Nicaragua

November 19-23, 20003

Guatemala (host) Panama and Belize

December 3-7, 2003

Cayman Islands (host), Jamaica and US Virgin Islands

The three winners will be joined by the winners of two home-and-away fixtures:

Haiti-Dominican Republic on October 26th. and November 9th.

Suriname-Trinidad & Tobago on November 9th. and 12th.

The five winning nations will join Canada, USA, and Costa Rica in Costa Rica.

CAF One place

The home-and-away matches will be played on October 24-25th. and November 7-9th., 2003.

South Africa v Namibia

Nigeria v Uganda/Kenya

Ghana v DR Congo

Zimbabwe v Angola

Semi-finals will take place in late January/February next year with the two-leg Final set for mid and

late-March, 2003.

AFC Two places

The draw for the Asian Football Confederation knockout tournament, set to

take place in Japan in March/April next year, is scheduled for November, 2003.

OFC One place

Two groups of five teams will compete in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands from 2-15 March 2-15, 2004 with the winners of each group playing in a final match.

CONMEBOL One place

Details of the qualifying process for South American teams are still to be finalized.