When did Women’s Football first made an Olympic appearance?

Answer: It was in 1996, at the Olympic Games held in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

That was their first Olympic appearance as an official event. (See prior posting)

Unlike men’s football, no age restriction is applied to the tournament. The final attracted 76,000 spectators – a record for a women’s sporting event.

While modern men’s football has existed since 1863 and was among the first team sports on the programme of the Olympic Games, the same cannot be said of women’s football. Although women played football from the end of the 19th century in England, we had to wait until the end of the First World War to see the appearance of the first competition: the French women’s football championship. In 1969 the first European Cup was organised and, in 1970, so was the first World Cup, both competitions which remained “unofficial”.

(Source)

It’s good to note that according to the article, since 1991, the IOC has made their intentions clear to make women sports more visible and significant when they established a requisite that all new sports to be introduced in the Olympics programme should have a women’s event. Awesome.