Association football has been included in every Summer Olympic Games as a men's competition sport, except 1896 (the inaugural Games) and 1932 (in an attempt to promote the new FIFA World Cup tournament). Women's football was added to the official program at the Atlanta 1996 Games. In order to avoid competition with the World Cup, FIFA have restricted participation of elite players in the men's tournament in various ways: currently, squads for the men's tournament are required to be composed of players under 23 years of age, with three permitted exceptions. By comparison, the women's football tournament is a full senior-level international tournament, second in prestige only to the FIFA Women's World Cup. Another major difference between the men's and women's tournaments is that the men's tournament is not included in the FIFA International Match Calendar, while the women's tournament is included. This in turn means that clubs are not required to release players for the men's tournament…[Wikipedia]