The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup not only carries the significance of nations playing for soccer's ultimate prize, but the tournament will take on the added importance of serving as qualification for
the women's soccer competition at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. The most simple scenario for Olympic qualification is if the eight quarterfinalist teams in this year's Women's World Cup
include Olympic host Australia, then all eight qualify for the Olympics. If Australia does not make the quarterfinals, then the best three losing quarterfinalists will advance to the Olympics along
with the four winners, leaving a spot open for the Matildas. The best three losing quarterfinalists will be determined as follows:
1) Those teams with the lowest margin of defeat in
their quarterfinal matches.
2) If teams are equal in their margin of defeat, the next tiebreak will be higher goals scored by the losers.
3) If teams lose by the same
score in the quarterfinals, the teams with the best performance in their group matches will advance to Australia. The best performance in group matches shall be determined in order by: points, goal
difference and goals scored Head-to-head results will not be a tiebreaker. In the event that the teams are still tied after the above criteria, then the teams' status in the FIFA Fair Play ranking
will be the determining factor. If the teams are still tied, then FIFA will draw lots. In addition, after initial discussion concerning increasing the roster size for the 1999 Women's World Cup to
22 players, FIFA has officially set the roster size at 20 players. The competing teams must submit their 1999 Women's World Cup rosters to FIFA no later than 10 days before their first match.
