By Victor Kanayo
The qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Women’s Olympic Football Tournament (WOFT) has been conducted on Tuesday May 30, 2023 and fixtures have been announced by the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
Among the matches lined up include a West African derby pitting Guinea and Ghana, while Uganda will take on Rwanda in an East African duel.
Burkina Faso will take on Mali in another fixture in the first round.
First Round Action
A total of 25 teams have entered the Olympic qualifying tournament, with 18 set to be involved in the first round.
The remaining seven, headlined by champions South Africa are the highest ranked teams from last year’s Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) and will join the competition in the second round.
Second/Third Round
The nine winners from the first round will join the seven highest ranked teams for a second-round tie involving 16 teams.
The eight winners progress to the third round, then the fourth round where the teams will be whittled to four.
Final Battle
Winners of the fourth round will qualify for the final tournament.
At the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Zambia represented Africa, and the She-polopolo will start their journey towards a possible back-to-back qualification in the second round.
Schedule With Dates
The first-round matches are scheduled for July 10 to 18 2023, the second round October 23 to 31, third round February 19 to 28 February 2024 while the final round will be staged between April 1 to 9 2024.
Another Hurdle Before Nigeria?
Meanwhile, the road to next year’s Women’s Olympic Football Tournament for nine-time African champions Nigeria is haunted by Ghana and Cameroon.
After a probable meeting with Ethiopia in the second round of the campaign in October this year, the Falcons will have to confront the winner of the ties Uganda/Rwanda and Cameroon.
Once they cross the Cameroonian hurdle, the Nigerian girls will be up against the winner of the Guinea Bissau/Benin Republic against Guinea/Ghana.
Cameroon stopped Nigeria from qualifying for the London 2012 Olympics, when they edged a two-leg encounter on penalties in Yaounde.
Equatorial Guinea stopped the Nigerian women team also known as Super Falcons in the race to Rio 2016 Olympics while Cote d’Ivoire proved the stumbling block to the last Games held in Tokyo.
However, the Super Falcons have severally stopped the Indomitable Lionesses from reaching the FIFA World Cup, including beating them in the Women AFCON quarter-finals in Morocco last year to deny the Lionesses a spot in this year’s finals in Australia and New Zealand.
The Falcons equally defeated Cameroon right in front of their home fans in the Final of the 2016 Women Africa Cup of Nations.
The Falcons stopped Ghana from reaching the Women AFCON in Morocco last year, and have also severally been the pain in the neck of Ghana’s Black Maidens as far as FIFA World Cup berths are concerned.
