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The Men's European Football Qualifiers for the 1956 Summer Olympics were the first qualification tournament for the European football teams.

Beside the hosting Australian team, the International Olympic Committee reserved direct spots for 3 European teams including Poland, Turkey and West Germany. In addition, it provided 4 more spots which were contested among 8 teams including the reigning Olympic champions Hungary.

Team 1	Agg.Tooltip Aggregate score	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Bulgaria	5–3	Great Britain	2–0	3–3
Yugoslavia	w/o	Romania	—	—
Hungary	w/o	East Germany	—	—
Soviet Union	7–1	Israel	5–0	2–1

Romania withdrew.
As East and West Germany agreed to compete together at the 1956 Olympics, East Germany withdrew. However, after an agreement for a combined football team fell through, a solely West German one was fielded.

23 October 1955 1956 Olympics – Qualifying	Bulgaria	2–0	Great Britain	Sofia, Bulgaria
	Stefanov 30' Yanev 61'	Report		Stadium: Vasil Levski National Stadium Attendance: 45,000 Referee: Giorgio Bernardi (Italy)

12 May 1956 1956 Olympics – Qualifying	Great Britain	3–3 (3–5 agg.)	Bulgaria	London, UK
	Hardisty 12', 62' Lewis 77' (pen.)	Report	Milanov 28' Prince 32' (o.g.) Dimitrov 66'	Stadium: Wembley Stadium Attendance: 30,000 Referee: Giorgio Bernardi (Italy)

Note: Britain lost 5–3 on aggregate, but earned a reprieve to compete in Melbourne

Both Bulgaria and Great Britain advanced.

Soviet Union	5–0	Israel
Tatushin 2' Ivanov 26', 71' Simonyan 45', 78'	Report (ru)

Israel	1–2	Soviet Union
Stelmach 64'	Report (ru)	Tatushin 59' Ilyin 79'

Soviet Union advanced.

References

1. Games of the XX. Olympiad. RSSSF.
2. How Britain's footballers earned a reprieve to compete in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Archived 9 August 2012 at the Wayback Machine Inside the Games, 1 July 2012; Retrieved 12 August 2012
3. Francesco Liverani profile

• Football qualification for the 1956 Summer Olympics
• Football at the Summer Olympics – Men's European Qualifiers