The football tournament at the 1980 Summer Olympics started on July 20 and ended on August 2. Only one event, the men's tournament, was contested. 16 teams were divided into 4 groups:

• Group A (Cuba, USSR, Venezuela, Zambia)
• Group B (Colombia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Czechoslovakia)
• Group C (Algeria, Spain, GDR, Syria)
• Group D (Costa Rica, Finland, Iraq, Yugoslavia)

Two best teams of each group competed in the quarter-finals.

The football tournament was held in five venues:

• The Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium (Moscow)
• The Grand Arena of the Dynamo Stadium (Moscow)
• Kirov Stadium (Leningrad)
• Republican Stadium (Kiev)
• Dynamo Stadium (Minsk)

The final was held at the Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium and the match for the 3rd place was held at the Grand Arena of the Dynamo Stadium. The football tournament was the most attended event on these Olympics: 1,821,624 spectators watched 32 matches of it at the stadiums.

Medals

Pos	Country:	Total:
1	Czechoslovakia	1	0	0	1
2	GDR	0	1	0	1
3	USSR	0	0	1	1

Men's tournament event

Remark:country names are given in the form they were used in the official documents of the IOC in 1980.