African champions, Super Falcons, will begin their quest to qualify for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games women’s football tournament with a second round tie against either Sudan or Comoros Island.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) held the draw for the qualifying series in Cairo, Egypt, with Nigeria drawn by to enter the second round.

The Super Falcons will begin the long journey to the Olympic Games with the game against either Sudan or Comoros in the second round because they are among the seeded teams given a bye into the second round.

That means they will not play until October 2026, when they meet the winner of the first-round clash between Sudan and Comoros between June 1 and 9, 2026.

Nigeria will enter the fray between October 5 and 13, with matches played over two legs, home and away.

At stake is a place in the later rounds of a demanding qualification series that will eventually produce only two African representatives for the women’s football event in Los Angeles, scheduled to be held from July 29 to 11, 2028.

The qualification campaign will involve 35 teams and stretch across five knockout rounds. Only two teams will survive the process, an indication of just how competitive the race is.

Elsewhere in the draw, several strong ties stand out. Tunisia will face Senegal, while Benin take on Mali. Another eye-catching fixture pits Morocco against Congo.

There are also heavyweight contests involving Cameroon against Guinea and Zambia meeting Uganda. Côte d’Ivoire will also battle DR Congo.

Interestingly, Nigeria failed to qualify for three consecutive editions of the Olympics between 2012 and 2020 and only made a return to the tournament in 2024.

The qualifying series will hold in five qualifying rounds, with two teams emerging as Africa’s representatives at the Los Angeles Olympic Games Women’s Football Tournament, scheduled for July 11 to 29, 2028.

The Nigeria Super Falcons are the only African women’s team to reach the quarterfinals at both the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Summer Olympics, achieving the latter at Athens 2004.

The team returned to the Olympics at the Paris 2024 edition after a 16-year absence. Now, the challenge is to qualify for the 2028 Games and improve on their quarterfinals record.