The football tournament at the 1976 Summer Olympics started on 18 July and ended on 31 July. Only one event, the men's tournament, was contested. 13 teams participated in the tournament, while three African teams withdrew in support of the anti-racism boycott. East Germany won the gold, defeating Poland in the final, with the Soviet Union taking the bronze.

Venues

Qualification

The following 13 teams qualified for the 1976 Olympics football tournament:

Match officials

Squads

Final tournament

First round

Group A

Group B

Group C

Group D

Bracket

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Bronze Medal match

Gold Medal match

Medal winners

Hans-Ulrich Grapenthin Wilfried Gröbner Jürgen Croy Gerd Weber Hans-Jürgen Dörner Konrad Weise Lothar Kurbjuweit Reinhard Lauck Gert Heidler Reinhard Häfner Hans-Jürgen Riediger Bernd Bransch Martin Hoffmann Gerd Kische Wolfram Löwe Hartmut Schade Dieter Riedel Coach: Georg Buschner Jan Tomaszewski Piotr Mowlik Antoni Szymanowski Jerzy Gorgoń Wojciech Rudy Władysław Żmuda Zygmunt Maszczyk Grzegorz Lato Henryk Wawrowski Henryk Kasperczak Roman Ogaza Kazimierz Kmiecik Kazimierz Deyna Andrzej Szarmach Henryk Wieczorek Lesław Ćmikiewicz Jan Benigier Coach: Kazimierz Górski Vladimir Astapovsky Anatoliy Konkov Viktor Matviyenko Mykhaylo Fomenko Stefan Reshko Volodymyr Troshkin David Kipiani Volodymyr Onyshchenko Viktor Kolotov Volodymyr Veremeyev Oleh Blokhin Leonid Buryak Vladimir Fyodorov Aleksandr Minayev Viktor Zvyahintsev Leonid Nazarenko Aleksandr Prokhorov Coach: Valeriy Lobanovskyi

Goalscorers

With six goals, Andrzej Szarmach of Poland is the top scorer in the tournament. In total, 66 goals were scored by 44 different players, with only one of them credited as own goal.

Final ranking