Football at the 2026 Asian Games

Football at the 2026 Asian Games
Event details
Games	2026 Asian Games
Host country	Japan
Dates	14 September – 3 October 2026
Venues	7 across Chūbu and Kansai regions (in 6 host cities)
Competitors	TBA from 18 nations
Men's tournament
Teams	15 (from 1 confederation)
Women's tournament
Teams	12 (from 1 confederation)
Editions
← 2022 2030 →

The Football tournament will be among the 43 sports played at the 2026 Asian Games. In this tournament, sixteen teams will participate in men's competition and twelve teams will participate in women's competition.

South Korea are the men's defending champions while Japan are the women's defending champions.

Competition schedule

Matches are scheduled as follows. All times are local: Japan Standard Time (UTC+9).

G

Group stage

1⁄4

Quarter-finals

1⁄2

Semi-finals

B

Bronze medal match

F

Gold medal match

Date Event	Mon 14	Tue 15	Wed 16	Thu 17	Fri 18	Sat 19	Sun 20	Mon 21	Tue 22	Wed 23	Thu 24	Fri 25	Sat 26	Sun 27	Mon 28	Tue 29	Wed 30	Thu 1	Fri 2		Sat 3
Men	—N/a	G		—N/a	G	—N/a	G	—N/a	G		—N/a	1⁄4		—N/a			1⁄2	—N/a			B	F
Women	G	—N/a		G	—N/a			G	—N/a			1⁄4	—N/a			1⁄2	—N/a		B	F	—N/a

Venues

A total of seven venues around six cities will be used.

Eleven venues were chosen for the bid after Aichi-Nagoya was selected, including Toyota, Nagoya, Kariya, Oita, Utsunomiya, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Suita, Saitama, Chiba and Chōfu. Those venues where shortlisted to Toyota, Nagoya, Kariya, Gifu, Shizuoka, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe, then later excluded Kyoto and Kobe on 30 April 2025. Notably, none of the stadiums used in the 2020 Olympics and 2012 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup will be used in this tournament, and the Shizuoka Stadium with Nagai Stadium are the only stadiums in this tournament that were used in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

The Toyota Stadium will host the men's finals, while Shizuoka Stadium will host the women's finals.

Fukuroi	Osaka	Toyota	Gifu
Shizuoka Stadium	Nagai Stadium	Toyota Stadium	Gifu Nagaragawa Stadium
Capacity: 50,889	Capacity: 47,853	Capacity: 45,000	Capacity: 26,109
Nagoya	Fukuroi Osaka Toyota Gifu Nagoya Kariya
Paloma Mizuho Rugby Stadium
Capacity: 11,900
Nagoya
CS Asset Minato Soccer Stadium
Capacity: 6,700
Kariya
Wave Stadium Kariya
Capacity: 2,602

These host cities will host the following matches:

• Fukuroi
  • Women's - 6 group stage, 2 quarter-finals, 2 semi-finals, bronze medal match and gold medal match
• Osaka
  • Men's - 2 semi-final matches
  • Women's - 6 group stage, 2 quarter-final matches
• Toyota
  • Men's - 6 group stage, 2 quarter-finals, bronze medal match and gold medal match
• Gifu
  • Women's - 5 group stage matches
• Nagoya, Rugby Stadium
  • Men's - 4 group stage, 2 quarter-final matches
• Nagoya, Soccer Stadium
  • Men's - 5 group stage matches
• Kariya
  • Men's - 6 group stage matches
  • Women's - 1 group stage match

Qualification

In the previous editions, participating nations were free to enter teams in the football tournament of the Asian Games. For the 2026 Asian Games, a qualification criteria was set up with the participating teams of the 2026 AFC U-23 Asian Cup qualifying for the men's tournament, and the teams of the 2026 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualifying for the women's tournament (both with the exception of Australia due to not being a member of the OCA). On 12 March 2026, it was confirmed that Hong Kong's both men's team and women's team would participate in the tournament. On 29 June 2026, it was confirmed that the Philippines would participate in the men's tournament. On 10 July 2026, Indian media The Times of India reported the final men's and women's participating teams; according to the list, in the men's tournament, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria would no longer participate, and were replaced by Kuwait and North Korea. In the women's tournament India and Iran would no longer participate, and were replaced by Myanmar and Thailand. They also stated that the women's tournament will be held not by 16 teams but by 12 teams. On 19 July 2026, 4 days before the draw, it was reported that Iraq had withdrawn from the men's tournament, and its spot would not be filled by another team.

The draw for the tournaments were held on 23 July 2026.

Nation	Men's	Women's
Bangladesh	—N/a
China
Chinese Taipei	—N/a
Hong Kong
Iran		—N/a
Japan
Kuwait		—N/a
Kyrgyzstan		—N/a
Myanmar	—N/a
North Korea
Philippines
Qatar		—N/a
Saudi Arabia		—N/a
South Korea
Thailand
United Arab Emirates		—N/a
Uzbekistan
Vietnam
Total: 18 NOCs	15/15	12/12

Participating teams

Men's tournament

Group A	Group B	Group C	Group D
Japan (hosts) Thailand Kyrgyzstan Hong Kong	China United Arab Emirates Iran North Korea	Vietnam Uzbekistan Philippines Kuwait	South Korea Saudi Arabia Qatar

Women's tournament

Group E	Group F	Group G
Japan (hosts) Chinese Taipei Vietnam Thailand	South Korea North Korea Bangladesh Myanmar	China Philippines Uzbekistan Hong Kong

Men's tournament

Main article: Football at the 2026 Asian Games – Men's tournament

Women's tournament

Main article: Football at the 2026 Asian Games – Women's tournament

Medal summary

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's tournament
Women's tournament