Women's Olympic Football tournament was held for the third time at the 2004 Summer Olympics. The tournament featured 10 women's national teams from six continental confederations. The 10 teams were drawn into two groups of three and one group of four and each group played a round-robin tournament. At the end of the group stage, the top teams from each group advanced to the knockout stage, beginning with the quarter-finals and culminating with the gold medal match at Karaiskakis Stadium on 26 August 2004.
Several qualification tournaments were held to determine the participating nations.
The tournament was held in five venues across five cities:
As the another sports, the tournament was originally planned to form two groups of five teams in the group stage, then play a knockout stage by four teams (two top teams in each group). Due to logistical and calendar issues, the tournament format had to be changed. FIFA decided to form three groups of three or four teams in the group stage, then play a knockout stage by eight teams (two top teams in each group and two best third-placed teams from three groups).
Competing countries were divided into three groups: two containing three teams (groups E and F) and one containing four teams (group G). Teams in each group played one another in a round-robin. The top two teams of each group advanced to the knockout stage, along with the third-placed team from the four-team group (group G) and the better-ranked third-placed team from the three-team groups (groups E and F).
Key:
<section begin=E /><section end=E /> <section begin=E1 /><section end=E1 />
<section begin=E2 /><section end=E2 />
<section begin=E3 /><section end=E3 />
<section begin=F /><section end=F /> <section begin=F1 /><section end=F1 />
<section begin=F2 /><section end=F2 />
<section begin=F3 /><section end=F3 />
<section begin=G /><section end=G /> <section begin=G1 /><section end=G1 /> <section begin=G2 /><section end=G2 />
<section begin=G3 /><section end=G3 /> <section begin=G4 /><section end=G4 />
<section begin=G5 /><section end=G5 /> <section begin=G6 /><section end=G6 />
<section begin=H1 /><section end=H1 /> <section begin=H2 /><section end=H2 /> <section begin=H3 /><section end=H3 /> <section begin=H4 /><section end=H4 />
<section begin=I1 /><section end=I1 /> <section begin=I2 /><section end=I2 />
<section begin=J1 /><section end=J1 />
<section begin=J2 />
<section end=J2 />
Japan and Sweden won the FIFA Fair Play Award, given to the team with the best record of fair play during the tournament. Every match in the final competition is taken into account but only teams that played at least three matches are eligible for the Fair Play Award.