Why is Olympic football under-23?

If you're missing your daly fix of international football after the end of Euro 2024 , then fear not, as the Olympics begins next week.

Football has been part of the Olympic schedule in every games since 1900, bar the 1932 edition to allow the newly created World Cup to gain traction.

This summer will see 16 nations face off for the gold medal in the men's tournament, as Brazil look to become the first nation to win the competition three times in a row. The tournament gives fans the opportunity to see some of the best young players in the world in action, as it is an under-23s competition - but why? FourFourTwo t akes a look...

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Why is Olympic football under-23?

We'll have to take you on a quick history lesson here, as the Olympic football competition has gone through a number of changes since it's first appearance in the 1900 Games, which were also held in Paris.

As per Olympic rules, all players were amateurs in the beginning, but by the 1920s some professional players began to be selected as international football grew in popularity. The football tournament was the Games' most popular event by 1928, leading to the creation of the World Cup two years later, with FIFA wanting the Olympics to maintain their amateur status to protect their new competition.

After World War II, the Soviet Bloc began to dominate the tournament, as their state-sponsored athletes were classified as amateurs, which led to the Soviet Union and its satellite countries winning 23 out of 28 Olympic medals between 1948 and 1980.

Rules were changed for the 1984 and 1988 Games which allowed teams from outside UEFA and CONMEBOL to play their strongest sides, while those within the two strongest federations were restricted to players who had not played in a World Cup.

By 1992, the tournament became an under-23s tournament and four years later the rules were tweaked to allow three overage players, which remains the set-up to this day.

So to conclude, the reason that the Olympics is an under-23s tournament is partly down to the evolution of the Olympics' amateur status, but also because FIFA want to avoid competition with the World Cup, meaning the rules are in place to restrict the planet's best players from taking part.

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