Football

About Football

Ireland's footballers were, remarkably, the very first Irish sportspeople to compete for the newly independent state at an Olympic Games, defeating Bulgaria 1-0 at the Paris 1924 Olympics before losing 2-1 after extra time to the Netherlands in the quarter-finals.

Ireland returned to Olympic football once more at London 1948, losing 3-1 to the Netherlands in the first round, and has not competed in the tournament since.

At the Games, football is played as an under-23 tournament for men (with three overage players permitted per squad) and a senior tournament for women, each decided by a knockout format following group-stage play. Qualification for the men's tournament runs through age-grade competition, while the women's tournament is contested by senior national teams via a separate qualifying pathway that Ireland has not yet navigated.