^1 Dates and venues are those of final tournaments (or final round of qualification tournaments), various qualification stages may precede matches at these specific venues.
All 11 OFC member national teams entered the tournament.[2] The top seven ranked teams advanced to the final automatically, with the remaining four competing in a qualification stage for the final place.
Tahiti and New Caledonia, as French administrative divisions, were not eligible to compete at the Women's Olympic Football Tournament.
Nine teams from UEFA competed at the World Cup, with the three best-placed European teams earning an Olympic qualification place. Three UEFA teams reached the semi-finals of the World Cup, which earned an Olympic qualification place for Great Britain (through England's performance), the Netherlands and Sweden, with Sweden eliminating reigning Olympic champions Germany.
Great Britain qualified through England's performance in the World Cup (a procedure already successfully employed by Team GB in field hockey and rugby sevens), based on a format agreed by the four British football associations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). Scotland also qualified for the World Cup but, under the agreement whereby the highest ranked home nation is nominated to compete for the purposes of Olympic qualification, their performance was not taken into account. Scotland players, along with Welsh and Northern Irish players, will be eligible for the Great Britain team in Tokyo.[3]
The Cameroon, the African runners-up, and Chile, the South American runners-up, will compete in a home-and-away two-legged play-off for a spot in the Olympics.
The draw for the order of legs was held on 31 January 2020 at the FIFA headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland. The first leg was originally to be held in Cameroon (the participating team from Africa was not known at the time of draw), while the second leg was originally to be held in Chile.[6] The matches were originally scheduled to be played on 9 and 15 April 2020, with the second leg in Chile to take place at the Estadio Tierra de Campeones, Iquique,[7] but were postponed on 17 March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]
After the Olympics had been postponed to July 2021, on 30 July 2020 FIFA announced the matches were rescheduled to 18 and 24 February 2021.[9] The fixtures were to take place at the Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo, Yaoundé and Estadio Nacional, Santiago.[10] However, FIFA announced on 4 February 2021 that the matches had been further postponed to the women's international match window in April 2021.[11] It was confirmed on 22 March 2021 that the matches had been moved to Arslan Zeki Demirci Sports Complex, Antalya, Turkey and would be played on 10 and 13 April 2021.[12][13]
^"FIFA.com en español". Twitter (in Spanish). Zürich: @fifacom_es. 31 January 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2020. 🚨 Chile jugará de local la vuelta del repechaje intercontinental a #Tokyo2020 Así lo ha determinado el sorteo celebrado hoy en Zúrich 🇨🇱 @LaRoja se medirá a 🇨🇲 Camerún o 🇿🇲 Zambia por el pase al Torneo Olímpico de Fútbol Femenino 🗓️ 9 Abril - Ida 🗓️ 15 Abril - Vuelta
