TEHRAN - The contest for the two Asian places in the Paris 2024 women’s football tournament starts on Thursday with the official draw for the Asian Qualifiers Round One and Iran will discover their opponents.

Asia’s best performances since women’s football was added to the Olympic program at Atlanta 1996 has come in the form of silver medals won by China in that year and Japan in 2012.

Both those teams are among the five top seeds who will await the five Round One qualifiers for the next stage.

The Round One draw, which will take place at the Asian Football Confederation House in Kuala Lumpur, will involve 26 teams ranked between sixth and 30th, with one non-ranked team also involved, Insidethegames.biz reported.

The names will be drawn from four seeding pots based on the latest rankings listed on December 22.

In the first pot are the teams ranked six to 12 – Vietnam, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Philippines and India.

The second will comprise teams ranked 13 to 19 – Iran, Jordan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia.

Pot three contains teams ranked 20th to 26th – Palestine, Singapore, Turkmenistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste.

Pot four involves teams ranked 27th to 30th and one non-ranked team – Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan, Bhutan and Afghanistan.

The teams will be divided into five groups of four and two groups of three, competing in a one-round league format in a centralized venue from April 3 to 11.

The winners of each group in this round will then advance to Round Two where they will be joined by the five highest seeded teams – North Korea, Japan, Australia, China and South Korea.

Four teams from Round Two – three group winners and the best-ranked runners-up – then face off in Round Three where they play two pairs of home and away matches with the two eventual winners qualifying for the Women’s Olympic Football Tournament in Paris in 2024.